Figure 3. Activation of VIP neurons is sufficient to enhance visual cortical plasticity in adult mice.
(A) Representative fluorescent images of binocular V1 area from a VIP-Cre mouse injected with AAV-DIO-ChETA-YFP. The slices were immunostained for YFP to indicate viral infected neurons and VIP for VIP-positive neurons. White arrows indicate the cells positive for both YFP and VIP staining. (B) Experimental schedule. (C and D) Changes in intrinsic signal responses evoked by the visual stimulation through the closed eye (C) and the open eye (D). VIP-Cre mice were injected with AAV-DIO-ChETA-YFP (VIP-ChETA, n = 4), AAV-DIO-TdTomato (VIP-Tdtm, n = 4), or AAV-ChETA (pyr-ChETA, n = 3). (E) Ocular dominance index (ODI) computed from response amplitude to contralateral (closed) and ipsilateral (open) eyes shown in (C and D). Open circles represent measurements in individual animals, and solid circles indicate mean of the open circles. (Data are plotted as mean ± S.D., *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01; paired t-test for comparing baseline and MD 5d of the VIP-ChETA group; other comparisons were analyzed with the two-way ANOVA followed by multiple comparisons with Bonferroni correction).