Fig. 2: Anxiogenic exploratory behaviors drive pnVTAPNOC activity.
A Cartoon of DIO-GCaMP6s (GCaMP6s) injection and fiber implant into pnVTA of PNOC-Cre mice. GCaMP6s activity was recorded during open field test (OFT) and elevated zero maze (EZM). B Left: Averaged traces of pnVTAPNOC GCaMP6s activity during high-anxiety epochs of the OFT, aligned to entries into the center zone of the open field arena. Right: Area under the curve (AUC) for averaged traces (left) calculated over 5-s intervals surrounding center zone entry. GCaMP6s activity increases during and immediately after center entry (one-way repeated-measures ANOVA main effect of time [F2,30 = 16.18, p < 0.0001]. Tukey’s multiple comparisons test [****p < 0.0001, **p = 0.0011], N = 16 mice). C Same as (B) but for pnVTAPNOC GCaMP6s activity during high-anxiety epochs of the EZM, aligned to entries into either open arm of the maze (one-way repeated-measures ANOVA main effect of time [F2,30 = 6.305, p = 0.0052]. Tukey’s multiple comparisons test [**p = 0.007, *p = 0.0233], N = 16 mice). D Heat map from a representative animal showing proportion of time spent in each area of the open field arena. Heat map shows more time spent around the edge than in the center. E Same as (D) but showing proportion of time spent in each area of the elevated zero maze. Heat map shows more time spent in the closed arms than in the open arms. All data represented as mean ± SEM.
