Fig. 3

Differential neuronal activity in PIL, SUM, CA2, and PAG brain regions of C57 mice under normal-rearing social environment. (A) Paradigm of the Two-Chamber Social Interaction Test in mice. (B) c-Fos neuronal fluorescence staining images with a scale of 1:100 μm. Ctl represents the control group, and the treatment groups include same-strain social interaction (SS) and other-strain social interaction (OS). Brain region localization: PFC (Bregma: 1.78 mm to -1.34 mm), BLA (Bregma: -1.34 mm to -1.58 mm), PIL (Bregma: -3.16 mm to -3.40 mm), SUM (Bregma: -2.80 mm to -3.08 mm), CA2 (Bregma: -2.92 mm to -3.08 mm), PAG (Bregma: -3.08 mm to -3.28 mm), The delineation of brain region ROIs (Regions of Interest) was based on the second edition of The Mouse Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates by Paxinos and Franklin. (C) Statistical analysis of the number of c-Fos⁺ cells. The x-axis represents the control group and treatment groups, and the y-axis represents the count of c-Fos + neurons(ANOVA, PFC: F _{(2, 29)} = 6.083, p = 0.0062,n: Ctl = 9,SS = 11, OS = 13; BLA: F _{(2, 25)} = 8.149, p = 0.0019, n: Ctl = 8,SS = 10, OS = 10; PIL: F _{(2, 22)} = 11.89, p = 0.0003, n: Ctl = 7,SS = 9, OS = 9; SUM: F _{(2, 22)} = 10.87, P = 0.0005, n: Ctl = 7,SS = 9, OS = 9; CA2: F _{(2, 24)} = 9.177, p = 0.0011, n: Ctl = 7,SS = 10, OS = 10; PAG: F _{(2, 24)} = 9.562, p = 0.0009 n: Ctl = 7,SS = 10, OS = 10). Data are presented as means ± s.e.m. Statistical significance was determined using One-way ANOVA, Tukey’s multiple comparisons test, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.