Fig. 3: pnVTAPNOC neuron activity is recruited in response to predatory threat.
A Cartoon of DIO-GCaMP6s (GCaMP6s) injection and fiber implant into pnVTA of PNOC-Cre mice. GCaMP6s activity was recorded during looming or exposure to predator odor. B Averaged traces of pnVTAPNOC GCaMP6s activity for males (blue, N = 5 mice) and females (magenta, N = 7 mice) aligned to looming onset. C Area under the curve (AUC) for averaged traces from B for females (left, magenta) and males (right, blue), calculated over 5-s intervals. GCaMP6s activity increases during and immediately after looming in males, but not females (two-way repeated-measures ANOVA main effect of time [F2,26 = 9.383, p = 0.0009], main effect of sex [F1,13 = 8.796, p = 0.0109], interaction of time x sex [F2,26 = 4.728, p = 0.0177]. Tukey’s multiple comparisons test [***p = 0.0004, **p = 0.0027], N = 8 males, 7 females). D Left: Averaged traces of pnVTAPNOC GCaMP6s activity surrounding 30-s exposure to either predator odor (2% 2MT, green) or a control non-predator odor (2% peppermint oil, blue). Right: Intensity-sorted heat map of GCaMP6s fluorescence during same epoch, each row correspond to a trial in the averaged trace (left). (N = 10 mice). E AUC for averaged traces from D calculated over 10-s intervals surrounding exposure to either the 2MT predator odor (left, green) or the peppermint oil (right, blue). pnVTAPNOC GCaMP6s activity increases during 2MT but not peppermint oil exposure (two-way repeated-measures ANOVA main effect of time [F4,72 = 6.173, p = 0.0003], main effect of odor [F1,18 = 4.896, p = 0.0401], interaction of time x odor [F4,72 = 4.041, p = 0.0052]. Tukey’s multiple comparisons test, 2MT over time [****p < 0.0001, **p = 0.0032], 2MT vs peppermint [**p = 0.0025, *p = 0.0419], N = 10 mice per group). All data represented as mean ± SEM.
