Fig. 5
From: The rostroventral part of the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates fear extinction
The suppression of dMTm→CeA pathway during extinction learning promotes fear extinction. a Experimental protocol. b Left, Schematic depiction for optogenetic inhibition of dMTm→CeA pathway. Right, The positions of fiber tips are marked by yellow dots for the stimulated group, gray dots for the unstimulated control group (CTR1, Unstim.), and green dots for the inactive-virus control group (CTR2, EYFP). c Top panel, Optogenetic inhibition (561 nm light, continuous pulse during the tone) of the dMTm→CeA pathway during extinction learning (n = 13 mice for CTR1 (Unstim.), n = 10 mice for CTR2 (EYFP), and n = 11 mice for stimulated group) induced the reduction of freezing levels during the retrieval test (four tones of the test day, two-way RM ANOVA followed by Holm–Sidak method, F(2, 31) = 5.214, P = 0.011; Unstim. vs. NpHR, t = 2.860, P = 0.022; EYFP vs. NpHR, t = 2.744, P = 0.02; Unstim. vs. EYFP, t = 0.0655, 0.948) but did not affect freezing levels during extinction learning (3rd–20th tones of Extinct., two-way RM ANOVA, F(2, 31) = 0.423, P = 0.659). No significant difference between the baseline (BL) freezing levels of the three groups was observed in extinction learning (Day 2, Kruskal–Wallis one-way ANOVA on Ranks, H(2) = 3.481, P = 0.175) and retrieval test (Day 3, Kruskal–Wallis one-way ANOVA on Ranks, H(2) = 2.756, P = 0.252). Bottom panel, Quantified data of the top panel. One block is the average of two tone trials. All data are presented as mean ± SEM. N.S., not significant. *P < 0.05. See Supplementary Table 1 for values of post hoc test
