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[Preprint]. 2023 Nov 21:2023.11.21.568134. [Version 1] doi: 10.1101/2023.11.21.568134

FIGURE 5: AC to pStr projections are causally involved in sound-triggered delayed reward prediction.

FIGURE 5:

A. Left: An illustration of cannulas implanted in bilateral AC and pStr for virus injections. Right: Behavioral timeline for chemogenetic inactivation experiments.

B. Histological verification of selective virus expression in the projections from AC to pStr. A brain slice acquired from an example animal is overlaid with the corresponding coronal section from the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas for both and AC and pStr (see Methods). Left: Virus injection tracks in pStr and AC denoted by green dotted line on the brain slice and the markers on the right indicate the depth at which the electrode was implanted in the right hemisphere. Scale bar: 500μm Right: Magnified images of DREADD virus expression in pStr axons (I) and AC cell bodies (II). Scale bar: 50μm

C. to F. Average peri-sound lick rate response curves (solid line denotes mean, shaded area represents SEM across trials) of an example animal trained to predict reward at either 1.5s sound-reward interval (C and E) or at no delay (D and F) when injected with saline (orange or light blue) and CNO (black) for rewarded trials (left) and catch trials (right). Shaded pink region represents the 1.5s long sound period. Solid and dotted orange or light blue lines represent when reward was given in rewarded trials and expected in catch trials. Left column represents animals from the experimental group and right column represents animals from the control group.

G. and H. Average log Predictive Licking Ratio (log PLR) across animals trained on the 1.5s Delay and No-Delay tasks in the experimental group (left, N = 8) and in the control group (right, N=6). Lines connecting the circles represent the log PLR for each animal when trained on the 1.5s Delay and No-Delay tasks. The average log PLR for experimental group animals was significantly higher for 1.5s Delay task than No-Delay task (**p = 0.0019, Wilcoxon rank-sum test) and was not significantly different for the control group animals (p = 0.366, Wilcoxon rank-sum test).