Fig. 3: Gene expression patterns across WD/Ext conditions and NAc-subregions.

A Global threshold-free comparisons of gene expression by Rank-Rank Hypergeometric Overlap (RRHO2) plots showing the degree of transcriptional concordance/discordance across conditions and regions. A strong discordance was observed when the Ctx group was compared with either the HC or Ext group, while HC and Ext displayed transcriptional concordance. B Both of these patterns were seen in NAc-core/shell. Concordance is indicated by the distribution of genes in the bottom left and top right quadrants denoting co-upregulation (yellow arrows in key) and co-downregulation (magenta arrows in key), respectively. Discordance is indicated by the distribution of genes in the top left and bottom right quadrants indicating oppositely regulated genes (up-down; yellow/magenta arrows and down-up; magenta/yellow arrows, respectively). The overlapping intensity is color-coded, where genes are sorted from most to least significant from middle/center to corner in each quadrant. C Union heatmaps generally confirm these RRHO2 patterns by displaying the distribution of all DEGs (upregulated: yellow or downregulated: blue), where the Ctx group displays little overlap with the other two groups. D Alluvial plots highlighting clusters of DEGs with expression patterns across conditions and NAc-subregions. Plots are stratified by behavioral condition (x-axis) to display the number of DEGs assigned to each pattern/cluster/alluvium (color-coded). Upregulation (upward arrow), downregulation (downward arrow), non-significant (ns) and variable indicate a combination of upward and downward arrows or ns (no relationship/overlap) for each condition.