Fig. 4: MeA neurons projecting to VMH regulate blood glucose.
From: Amygdala–liver signalling orchestrates glycaemic responses to stress
a, Schema for chemogenetic silencing of the MeA–VMH circuit. b, Blood glucose in CNO-injected mice before and after 30 min of restraint stress following MeA–VMH silencing (MeAVMH-Gi) as depicted in a. c, Schema for chemogenetic activation of the MeA–VMH circuit. d,e, Blood glucose during GTT (2 mg kg−1) in CNO-injected mice without (d) and with (e) metyrapone pretreatment (at −60 min) following MeA–VMH activation (MeAVMH-Gq) as depicted in c. f, Schematic for tracing MeA–liver circuits. Created with BioRender (https://BioRender.com/zfc1zkn). g, MeA-connected VMH neurons express Tdtom and liver-connected VMH neurons express GFP. Arrows mark colocalization. h,i, Imaging (h) and quantification (i) of FOS+ neurons among locus coeruleus TH+ neurons in CNO-injected mice treated as depicted in f. j, Schema of sympathetic circuit to liver via coeliac ganglia. Created with BioRender (https://BioRender.com/zfc1zkn). k–m, Imaging (k) and quantification of FOS+ cells (l) and TH intensity (m) in TH+ coeliac ganglia neurons in CNO-injected mice treated as depicted in j. n, Blood glucose during pyruvate tolerance testing (2 mg kg−1) in CNO-injected mice treated as depicted in j. o, Hepatic gluconeogenic gene expression in CNO-injected mice treated as depicted in j. Glut2 is also known as Slc2a2. p, Hepatic gluconeogenic protein levels in CNO-injected mice treated as depicted in j. q, Schema for optogenetic activation of the MeA–VMH circuit. r,s, Blood glucose changes with 5 min (r) or 15 min (s) optogenetic stimulation in mice transduced in MeA with hSyn-hChR2(H134R) (MeAVMH ChR2) or hSyn-eGFP (control). t, Blood glucose changes during pyruvate tolerance testing (2 mg kg−1) with 15 min optogenetic stimulation in mice transduced in MeA with hSyn-hChR2(H134R) (MeAVMH ChR2, red) or hSyn-eGFP (control, grey). u, Enriched M2 gluconeogenic metabolites during [2,3-13C]pyruvate tolerance testing with 15 min optogenetic stimulation in mice transduced in MeA with hSyn-hChR2(H134R) (MeAVMH ChR2) or hSyn-eGFP (control). Data are mean ± s.e.m. Individual data points represent individual mice. Sample size and statistical analysis in Supplementary Data Table 1. Scale bars, 100 μm.
