Fig. 2: Vibrissa inactivation reduces functional connectivity measures.

a Schematic of vibrissa inactivation procedure including bilateral whisker trimming and local anesthetic (bupivacaine) injection into the mystacial pads. b Change in functional connectivity strengths between sensory regions upon vibrissa inactivation. Color coding denotes the difference in regression coefficients after vs. before treatment. Green outlines denote significant differences with two-sided t test p ≤ 0.05 over animals (n = 8). The dashed box denotes left vs. right S1BF. c Seed-based maps over three coronal slices, showing functional connectivity to S1BF (arrowhead) before (top, Pre) vs. after (bottom, Post) vibrissa inactivation. Regression coefficients indicated for voxels with two-sided t test p ≤ 0.01 over n = 8 animals, and bregma coordinates (mm) noted in yellow. d Mean homotopic S1BF regression coefficients before (dark blue) vs. after (magenta) treatment in n = 8 animals (difference significant with paired t test p = 0.032). e Spectral density in the 0.01–0.1 Hz range before (dark blue) vs. after (magenta) vibrissa inactivation (difference not significant with t test p = 0.34). f Vibrissa inactivation-induced functional connectivity differences between S1BF and DMN-associated regions (red labels) in n = 8 animals. Color scale as in panel (b). g Mean connectivity strengths between S1BF and ipsilateral DMN-associated regions before (dark blue) vs. after (magenta) vibrissa inactivation. Values correspond to the average of dashed boxes in panel f, and the difference is significant with paired t test p = 0.022. h Map of average local functional connectivity to seed regions in S1BF (arrowhead), showing differences observed following vibrissa inactivation. i Quantification of ipsilateral functional connectivity to S1BF observed before (dark blue) vs. after (magenta) treatment in n = 8 animals.