Fig. 7: dSUB-projecting MECCCK neurons fire actively during environment exploration.
A Schema of the novel location task in this study. B Viral infection in the dSub area (upper: scale bar, 1000 μm) and the retrogradely labeled CCK+ neurons (bottom: scale bar, 200 μm) in the MEC of CCK-Cre mice (AAV Retro-syn-FLEX-GCamp7s-GFP, 5.00 E + 12 vg/ml, 200 nl). C The mice exhibited significantly more interactions with the newly placed object compared to the familiar object. D Heatmap shows the Δ F/F average traces from a single subject in the training and testing phase. E The Δ F/F average traces from all subject animals (N = 6 mice), aligned to the time of object interaction. F Group summary of GCaMP7s signals of dSUB-projecting MECCCK neurons during the object exploration in training and testing trial. G Verification of viral expression in the MEC area (left) and CCK+ terminals in the SUB area (right). Scale bar, 1000 μm. H 200 nl CTB-488 was delivered into the SUB region to mimic the diffusion profile of CNO in vivo. Scale bar: 500 µm. I Disturbance of the MECCCK-SUB projections impaired the capability of distinguish the difference between novel placed object and familiar object. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; ns not significant. Data are reported as mean ± SEM.
