Fig. 9: Neuroligin-3 knockdown in the S1-1Tr cortex prevents associative memory neurons to encode the somatic pain stimulus and the battle sound.

A Representative traces show the spontaneous and evoked spikes from S1-Tr neurons in intruder plus scramble and intruder plus shNLGN3 mice. The tactile stimulus (20 s in the duration) was administered at one minute of recording traces. The battle sound (20 s) was given at two minutes and twenty seconds. B Illustrates the activities of S1-Tr cortical neurons in the ratio of the spike frequencies in response to the sound signal to the spontaneous spike frequencies (Y-axis) versus the ratio of the pike frequencies in response to pain stimulus to the spontaneous spike frequencies (X-axis) in intruder + scramble mice (left panel) and intruder + shNLGN3 mice (right panel). Gray lines show that those ratios were set at 1.5. Gray dots show that S1-Tr cortical neurons appear no response to the sound signal and the pain stimulus. Red dots indicate that S1-Tr cortical neuros respond to both sound signal and touch stimulus (associative memory neurons). Green dots show that S1-Tr cortical neurons only respond to the sound signal. Blue dots show that S1-Tr cortical neurons only respond to the touch stimulus. Insets show percentages of S1-Tr cortical neurons in response to the sound signal, the pain stimulus or both signals in neuroligin-3 knockdown mice and scramble control mice. C Represents the proportions of associative memory neurons in the intruder plus scramble and intruder plus shNLGN3 groups of mice, along with their chi-square test results. D Represents the proportions of activated cells in groups of mice. The intruder group of mice exhibits a 72% proportion of activated cells, while the control group shows 47%, the intruder-scramble group 44%, and the intruder-shNLGN3 group 45%.