Fig. 7: Different salient stimuli elicit responses in CeM^Htr2a and CeM^Sst neurons.

a Behavioral paradigm. b Representative trace from a CeM^Htr2a neuron showing increased neuronal activity during the 1-min consumption bouts (gray color). c Average z-score comparisons of the activities of the same CeM^Htr2a and CeM^Sst neurons recorded in the three different conditions (two-tailed Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. CeM^Htr2a: water-saccharin, p = 0.9477, n = 80; saccharin-quinine, p = 0.0175, n = 71; water-quinine, p = 0.0714, n = 67. CeM^Sst: water-saccharin, p = 0.1836, n = 69; water-quinine, p = 0.6808, n = 63; saccharin-quinine, paired two-tailed t test p = 0.0067, t = 2.788, n = 78). d CEBRA-generated embeddings of CeM^Htr2a and CeM^Sst neurons in the three conditions. e Comparison of behavioral decoding accuracy using RF across animals for Htr2a (blue) and Sst (green) neurons (water, saccharin, quinine: two-tailed Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test p < 0.0001). (Prediction scores of accuracy of behavior compared to shuffled data. Htr2a: Actual-Shuffled n = 16. Sst: Actual-Shuffled: n = 57). Chord diagrams and bar graphs showing the stable (“generalizers”) or unstable correlation (“specializers”) of the same CeM^Htr2a (f) and CeM^Sst neurons (g) when switching from saccharin to quinine. Specializers in gray (CeM^Htr2a unpaired two-tailed t test p = 0.0332, t = 2.569, n = 5 mice; CeM^Sst p = 0.0087, t = 3.047, n = 8 mice). h Percentages of generalizers (left) and specializers (right) within the CeM^Htr2a and CeM^Sst populations (Generalizer: unpaired two-tailed t test p = 0.0259, t = 2.573. Specializer: p = 0.0261, t = 2.570). (Htr2a: n = 5, Sst: n = 8 mice). i Photoactivation of CeM^Htr2a (blue) and CeM^Sst neurons (green) promotes 10 mM quinine intake compared to controls (CeM^Htr2a: Mann-Whitney two-tailed test p = 0.0007, U = 3.500. CeM^Sst: p = 0.0016, U = 5). (CeM^Htr2a: n = 8 Ctrl, n = 9 ChR2; CeM^Sst: n = 8 Ctrl, n = 9 ChR2 mice). j Same as in (i), except for 100 μM quinine (CeM^Htr2a: Mann-Whitney two-tailed test p = 0.0003, U = 2. CeM^Sst: p = 0.0151, U = 11). Group sizes as in (i). CeM^Htr2a::ChR2 and CeM^Sst::ChR2 mice drink larger amounts of 100 µM compared to 10 mM quinine (CeM^Htr2a main effect quinine: Two-way ANOVA, F(1,15) = 14.83, p = 0.0016; multiple comparison p = 0.0003. CeM^Sst main effect quinine: Two-way ANOVA, F(1,15) = 8.711, p = 0.0099; multiple comparison p = 0.0015). (n = 8 Ctrl, n = 9 ChR2 mice). Values = Mean ± SEM.