Figure 6.

Schematic diagram of functional state transition of the secretomotor OT and VP neurons in vitro. As visible in our acute slice model (dashed red frame) and in our organotypic culture model (black frame), the transition from random firing to the typical neurosecretory bursting/phasic pattern is either inherent (a, developmentally active: OT neurons) or gated (b, elicited by sensory stimuli: VP neurons). The acute slice model in most cases (99% for OT neurons, 70% for VP neurons) does not include the generator network. See Conclusion.