(A) Exploration of a novel context increased cFos expression in the TH+ cells of LC (unpaired t-test, n=5, ***p<0.001). Example images of TH and cFos staining in LC. Scale bar, 50μm. TH- magenta, cFos- cyan. The LC is outlined.
(B) Schematics of experimental design for surgery. Example image for virus spread in HP estimated with AAV-DIO-GFP injected together with CAV-cre. Scale bar, 300μm.
(C) Inhibition of LC cells projecting to dCA1 during exploration of context A impaired contextual memory linking tested with a 5 hours interval. (Control, n=17; LC inhibited, n=15. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA, Sidak post hoc. ##p <0.01, ***p<0.001, ****p<0.0001). Context A- Ctx A, Context B- Ctx B, Context C- Ctx C (neutral). CNO-Clozapine-N-oxide was given to all mice. * is used to depict significance within groups and # is used to show significance between groups for two-way RM ANOVA.
(D) Inhibition of LC cells projecting to dCA1 did not affect contextual conditioning (Two-way RM ANOVA, Sidak posthoc test; control, n=7; LC inhibited, n=7, **p<0.001). CNO-Clozapine-N-oxide was given to all mice.
All results are mean ± s.e.m.