Figure 5.

CREB mutant mice exhibit a decrease in stress-activated cells that project to the VTA. Although wild-type mice exhibit an increase in Fos-activated cells that project to the ventral tegmental area (doubled-labeled Fos/FG cells) in the ventral BNST (a) and the infralimbic cortex (b), CREBαΔ mutant mice do not. Although no differences were seen between the genotypes in response to acute cocaine, there was an increase in double-labeled cells in two regions that did not show stress-induced alterations, the dorsal BNST (c) and the lateral hypothalamus (d). **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 compared with control; ^#p < 0.05 pairwise comparison for wild-type versus mutant forced swim test (FST).