Fig. 5: Role of PFC in modulating sound-evoked responses in the MD.

A Schematic of the experimental design showing local optogenetic activation of GABAergic neurons and simultaneous SUA recordings in the PFC of VGAT-ChR2-EYFP mice that received AAV-retro-hSyn-cre-mCherry injection into the MD and AAV-DIO-ChrimsonR into the PFC. Created by the authors. B Histological image showing EYFP/mCherry/DAPI labeling in the PFC. Representative AP waveforms, raster plots, and PSTHs of a local FS unit (C) and a RS unit projecting to the MD (D) in the PFC under 589-nm and 473-nm laser stimulation. E Schematic of optogenetic inactivation of PFC (PFC-silencing) and simultaneous SUA and LFP recordings in the MD of VGAT-ChR2-EYFP mice. Created by the authors. F Raster plots and PSTHs of three representative MD neurons with and without PFC-silencing. Quantification of spontaneous firing rates (G) and AUC of sound-evoked Phasic- (H) and Sustained-responses (I) in MD neurons under different conditions. N = 83 units from 8 mice. Representative traces of LFP (J) and corresponding time-frequency spectrograms (K) in response to sound stimuli with and without PFC-silencing. Normalized PSD of LFPs in the 0–80 ms (L) and 80–500 ms (M) post-stimulus window. Statistical analysis of normalized PSD across frequency bands in the 0–80 ms (N) and 80–500 ms window (O). N = 16 recording sessions from 8 mice. ^**P < 0.01, as determined by an LME.