Fig. 1.

Brain dissection to confirm injection site. a Mice are unilaterally injected at the co-ordinates for the lateral amygdala with Evans blue dye and culled 30 min later. 1 mm thick brain sections are imaged at 700 nm where injected dye fluoresces red. b Comparison to neuroanatomy at Bregma −1.94 mm confirms injection location to the lateral amygdala. c Mice brains are dissected into the anterior contralateral (AC), anterior ipsilateral (AI), posterior contralateral (PC), posterior ipsilateral (PI) and cerebellum (Cb) for analysis by ELISA and western blotting. The PI fraction contains the lateral amygdala injection site. d-f OA concentration in brain tissue is quantified by ELISA. Significant levels of OA are detected in the PI fraction alone at all time points, with no significant difference observed between any of the non-injected fractions, with concentrations comparable to homogenised tissue controls (Additional file 1: Figure S1). The PI fraction maintains significantly elevated levels of OA at 24 h and 7 days after injection, although the concentration is reduced. (n = 3, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001)