Supplementary Figure 5: Spike fidelity is enhanced in PCE male offspring.

(a and b) Representative traces of evoked action potentials (APs) in response to somatically injected current (top, in red the response elicited by 50 pA; bottom, in blue and red the elicited APs in response to 50 pA and 200 pA, respectively) by dopamine neurons from both CTRL (left) and PCE (right) offspring. Calibration bar: 100 ms, 50 mV. N= 20 and 21 experiments were repeated independently from PCE and CTRL groups, respectively, with similar results obtained. (c) PCE (n_cells= 20, n_rat= 10, n_litter= 6) reduced standard deviation of the latency (Jitter, ms) to the appearance of the first AP in response to somatically injected current (****P<0.0001, F_(3,64)=27.16; PCE: P<0.0001, F_(1,64)=44.79; two-way ANOVA) when compared to CTRL (n_cells= 21, n_rat =10, n_litter=6). Data are represented as box-and-whiskers plot (including minima, maxima, and media values, and lower and upper quartiles) with single values expressing average data for each animal. (d) The degree of spike fidelity in response to the current injected is revealed by the spike frequency of dopamine neurons plotted as a function of the jitter in PCE (n_cells= 20, n_rat= 10, n_litter= 6) and CTRL (n_cells= 21, n_rat= 10, n_litter= 6) offspring (*P=0.048, F_(1,4)=7.844; linear regression). (e and f) Frequency distribution graphs show that PCE does not affect membrane capacitance (e) (P=0.52, ns; t₍₅₆₎=0.63; PCE and CTRL: n_cells= 71, n_rat= 29, n_litter= 6) and inter-spike interval (ISI) (f) (P=0.45, ns; t₍₁₉₎=0.768; PCE: n_cells= 20, n_rat= 11, n_litter= 6; CTRL: n_cells= 21, n_rat= 10, n_litter= 6). Data were analyzed with two-tailed unpaired t-test.