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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Feb 23.
Published in final edited form as: Nature. 2011 Feb 24;470(7335):535–539. doi: 10.1038/nature09742

Figure 2. Enhanced synaptic transmission onto VTA-projecting LHb neurons correlates with helpless behavior of individual animals.

Figure 2

a–b. aLH and cLH animals display behavioral deficits in the forced swim test (FST) and escape/avoidance test. a. Fraction of immobile time for 5 min in FST (WT: 0.12±0.05, aLH: 0.33±0.08, cLH: 0.31±0.05, n indicated in bars, *p<0.05, Kruskal-Wallis test). b. Failure rate to escape during 30 trials of escapable footshock (WT: 0.12±0.03, aLH: 0.31±0.03, cLH: 0.38±0.05, n indicated in bars, ***p<0.001, F(2, 136)=11.57, one way ANOVA). c. Mean mESPC frequency onto VTA-projecting LHb neurons correlates with an animal’s helpless behavior measured as the fraction of sessions in which animals failed to escape (R2=0.69; p< 0.001, N=13 animals, n>5 cells for each animal). d. Spontaneous spiking rate measured in cell attached configuration was increased in cLH compared to WT control animals (WT: 0.92±0.32, cLH: 3.03±0.82, n=17–25, **p<0.01, bootstrap). All error bars represent s.e.m.