Figure 1
From: Plasticity of intrinsic excitability across the estrous cycle in hypothalamic CRH neurons
CRH neuron intrinsic excitability varies across the female estrous cycle. (A) Image of left hemisphere PVN showing expression of tdTomato (red) in CRH neurons. White cells are tdTomato positive CRH neurons that have been filled with neurobiotin via the whole cell recording pipette. (B) Representative responses of CRH neurons to 0 pA, 10 pA, 30 pA and 50 pA current steps. Proestrus in red, estrus in blue and diestrus in purple. (C) Summary data for the F/I curve. Cells from proestrus animals (n = 29 cells) show a significantly higher firing frequency compared to those from estrus (n = 38) and diestrus (n = 22). Symbols denote significance determined by Tukey’s post hoc multiple comparisons test (Two-way ANOVA results in Supplementary Table 1), blue: proestrus versus estrus, purple: proestrus versus diestrus. Insert shows total number of APs fired over all current steps for each group. (D) Graph of first spike latency (FSL) for each current step. Cells from proestrus animals had a shorter FSL at 10 and 15 pA steps. Stars are results of post hoc multiple comparisons, as in B. N = 9, 15 and 10 mice for diestrus, estrus, and proestrus groups respectively. P values: * ≤ 0.05, ** ≤ 0.01, *** ≤ 0.001, **** ≤ 0.0001.
