Fig. 4

Comparison of neuronal activity in brain regions during short-term and long-term memory recall in cPcdhα1-12 mice (a) Coronal brain Sects. (50 μm thick, AP 2.3 to AP −4.0) were prepared and aligned with the Allen Brain Atlas for c-Fos quantification. 2 h interval : cPcdh-α1-12 (n = 5, male 3, female 2), wild-type (n = 5, male 3, female 2), 24 h interval : cPcdh-α1-12 (n = 4, male 2, female 2), wild-type (n = 4, male 2, female 2). Approximately 98 slices were obtained per mouse. (b) Quantification of c-Fos-positive neurons in brain regions of cPcdhα1–12 mice and wild-type mice tested at a 24 h interval. The top 16 regions with the highest number of cells in wild-type mice are shown. No significant differences were observed between wild-type and cPcdh-α1-12 mice across any of the brain regions. (c) Quantification of c-Fos-positive neurons in brain regions of cPcdh-α1-12 and wild-type mice tested at a 2 h interval. In cPcdh-α1-12 mice, significantly fewer c-Fos-positive neurons were observed in the hippocampus (CA1, CA3), retrosplenial area (RSP), amygdala (MEA, BLA), and endopiriform nucleus (EP) compared to wild-type mice. Statistical significance is indicated by *p < 0.05. (d) Representative images of c-Fos staining observed in cPcdh-α1-12 (i’–vi’) and wild-type mice (i–vi) 2 h after memory recall. (i), (i’) CA3 (ii), (ii’) CA1 (iii), (iii’) RSP (iv), (iv’) MEA (v), (v’) BLA, EP. Scale bar = 100 μm. (e) 3D reconstruction of c-Fos-positive neurons. Activated neurons (green dots) are visualized in regions where cPcdh-α1-12 mice showed significantly reduced activity, highlighting the differences in neuronal activity patterns between the 4 groups. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Statistical significance was determined using unpaired t-test.