Fig. 6: Calcium response patterns of Ecel1 positive neurons in the rostral ZI in self-grooming behavior.

a Schematic (left) and representative images showing GCamP6s and mCherry expression in ZIr of Ecel1-Cre mice (right). Scale bars, 500 μm and 250 μm (zoom-in image). The experiment was independently repeated 5 times with similar results. b Schematic diagram showing the behavioral paradigm for fiber photometry recording in freely moving mice. c Schematic diagram (c) and statistic analysis (d) showing water spray toward the face effectively induced self-grooming behaviors. **P = 0.0013, n = 5 mice. e Heatmap (e) and average calcium transients (f) of ZIr^Ecel1 neurons before, during and after water-spray induced self-grooming. Red trace: recording of GCaMP6s fluorescent signal; Gray trace: recording of control mCherry fluorescent signal. The dashed lines indicate the start or the end of self-grooming. Shaded areas around means indicate standard error of mean (SEM). g Statistic analysis showing area under curve (AUC) of average calcium transients of GCamP6s channel compared with mCherry control channel before grooming starts (*P = 0.0156) and after grooming starts (*P = 0.0152), before grooming ends (*P = 0.0385) and after grooming ends (*P = 0.0114) in water-spray induced self-grooming. N = 5 mice per group. Two-tailed paired t-test for (d) and (g). Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.