Fig. 7: Silencing of SM1^PAG and SM1^RVM neurons impair motor-related rather than sensory behaviors.

a and b Schematic showing the viral strategy (left), and representative imaging of hM4Di-mCherry virus infection (right) of SM1^PAG (a) or SM1^RVM (b) neurons. Scale bars, 200 μm. c Representative traces (left) and summarized data (right) showing APs were suppressed by bath CNO in SM1 hM4Di⁺ neurons. d–h Effects of silencing SM1^PAG or SM1^RVM neurons on von Frey frequency (d Groups, P = 0.4468), brush (e SM1^PAG, P = 0.8236. SM1^RVM, P = 0.8309), tape removal (f SM1^PAG, P = 0.7570. SM1^RVM, P = 0.4098), Hargreaves (g SM1^PAG, P = 0.3746. SM1^RVM, P = 0.2782), and hotplate (h SM1^PAG, P = 0.9372. SM1^RVM, P = 0.2015) test. i–m Effects of silencing SM1^PAG or SM1^RVM neurons in rotarod (i SM1^PAG, P = 0.0006. SM1^RVM, P = 0.0423), beam (j SM1^PAG, P = 0.0267. SM1^RVM, P = 0.6174), ladder (k SM1^PAG, P = 0.0565. SM1^RVM, P = 0.0470, and l SM1^PAG, P = 0.0418. SM1^RVM, P = 0.1551), and open field (m SM1^PAG, P = 0.3857. SM1^RVM, P = 0.8275) test. All data are expressed as mean ± sem, and (d) were analyzed by two-way ANOVA test. (e–m) were analyzed by two-tailed unpaired t test or Mann Whitney test. Sample sizes are indicated in the figures, with detailed statistics provided in Supplementary Data 1. *P ≤ 0.05, **P ≤ 0.01. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.