Journal: The Journal of Neuroscience

Article Title: The Emergence of a Stable Neuronal Ensemble from a Wider Pool of Activated Neurons in the Dorsal Medial Prefrontal Cortex during Appetitive Learning in Mice

doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1496-19.2019

Figure Lengend Snippet: Persistently enhancing the excitability of S1-activated neurons impairs conditioning. A, Timeline of tagging and conditioning. All mice received clozapine injections on Sessions 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 (purple arrows). Doxycycline was presented in the drinking water of all mice at all times, with the exception of its removal 48 h before the tagging session, which lasted until 1 h following the tagging session. B, Representative image of mCherry staining in dmPFC of Fos-tTa mice tagged during S1 or by exposure to a NC. Arrows indicate hM3Dq+ neurons. C, F, Selectivity Index of responses (CS-ITI/total number head entries) during acquisition in Fos-tTA (hM3Dq+; orange) and WT (hM3Dq−; black) mice following S1 or NC tagging. D, G, CS and ITI responses during Acquisition in Fos-tTA (hM3Dq+; orange) and WT (hM3Dq−; black) mice following S1 or NC tagging. E, H, CS and ITI responses during recall in Fos-tTA (hM3Dq+; orange) and WT (hM3Dq−; black) mice following S1 or NC tagging. I, Schematic representation of injection sites. Data are mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05. S1 tag = 6, 12; NC tag: n = 8, 10.

Article Snippet: Heterozygous (het) male Fos-GFP (RRID: IMSR_JAX:014135 ), Fos-tTa (RRID: MMRRC_031756-MU ), GAD-tdTomato mice (RRID: IMSR_EM:10422 ) ( Besser et al., 2015 ) mice were bred onto a C57BL/6 background.

Techniques: Staining, Injection

Journal: Neuron

Article Title: Dopamine neurons reflect the uncertainty in fear generalization

doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.09.028

Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Cartoon depicting AAV viruses used to conditionally express ChR2 in an activity-dependent manner. The presence of Dox prevents c-fos-promoter-driven tTA from binding TRE site, and thus ChR2 expression. (B) Schematic of fear conditioning procedure, regiment of Dox treatment, and timing of ChR2 stimulation (20 Hz, 5ms, 1s, at CS+ onset). (C) ChR2-mCherry expression (magenta) in tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive neurons (green) in the VTA of experimental and control groups, as well as mice with Dox continuously present. Scale bar: 250μm. (D) Percentages of dopamine cells expressing ChR2 (significant group effect in one-way ANOVA, F(2,17) = 67.83, p < 0.001; subsequent post-hoc comparisons, *p < 0.05, ***p values < 0.001; N = 8 for exp and con, N = 4 for on dox). (E) Differential freezing behavior during retention tests (significant group × testing interaction in a two-way ANOVA, F(3,42) = 3.46, p = 0.03; follow-up Bonferroni pairwise comparisons, *p values < 0.05).

Article Snippet: Briefly, pAAV shuttle plasmids for ChR2 (pAAV-Ef1α-DIOChR2-mCherry or pAAV-TRE(Tight)-FLEX-ChR2-mCherry), Jaws (pAAV-CAG-FLEX-Jaws-GFP), and tTA (pAAV-fos-tTA) were co-transfected with the packing plasmid pDG1 (Nature Biotechnologies) into HEK293T/17J cells (ATCC).

Techniques: Activity Assay, Binding Assay, Expressing