Fig. 6. Functional consequences of spiny stellate-depleted barrel cortex assessed in Smad7OE mice.
a Schematic for assessing whisker-dependent neuronal activity in Smad7OE mice. A single whisker was spared in adult mice, which were then placed in a novel texture environment. Whisker-evoked activity in barrel cortex was assessed by c-fos expression. b Representative images for fos ISH in tangential sections through L4 barrel cortex (left). A heatmap of average expression for all animals is shown (right). Scale bars, 250 µm. c Ratio of fos expression intensity (left) and fos+ cells (right) were calculated in surrounding versus principal barrel (mean ± SEM). Asterisks indicate: **p = 0.007 and ***p = 0.0009, two-sided Welch’s t test (n = 17 control and n = 14 Smad7OE brains). d Profiles of fos expression intensity, normalized to the peak barrel intensity (mean ± SEM), measured across the areas outlined in (b). Asterisk indicates p < 0.05, two-sided Welch’s t test with multiple comparison correction by the Benjamini–Hochberg method (n = 17 control and n = 14 Smad7OE brains). e, Schematic of calcium imaging in Thy1-GCaMP6f x Smad7OE mice. f Average response in barrel cortex upon whisker-stimulation. For each animal, a projection image was made using the averaged (over 60–90 trials) ΔF/F0 time-series during the post-stimulus response period (stimulus-to-peak). Shown is the average projection from control (left, n = 6) and Smad7OE (right, n = 6) animals. g Time course of GCaMP6f activity (mean ± SEM) in barrel cortex following single-whisker stimulation. Gray vertical line indicates whisker-stimulation. h–m Quantification of GCaMP6f activity (mean ± SEM) assessing h peak amplitude, i peak latency, j response duration, *p = 0.039, k area under curve (AUC), l normalized AUC (to peak amplitude), *p = 0.033 and m cortical area, *p = 0.015. In (g–m), displayed are group means ± SEM. Asterisk indicates *p < 0.05, two-sided Welch’s t test, n = 6 control and n = 6 Smad7OE brains. Source data are provided as a Source data file.