Figure 4. Site-selective Gabra1 knockdown in adulthood does not obviously impair goal-directed action selection.

(a) Experimental timeline. (b) Histological representation of viral vector expression imposed onto images from the Mouse Brain Library (Rosen et al., 2000). Infusions were bilateral. Some infections were contained within the caudal prelimbic cortex, and are referred to as “caudal prelimbic.” Meanwhile, others were more broadly distributed within the mPFC and are referred to as “broad prelimbic.” (c) Acquisition of food-reinforced responses was augmented by broad prelimbic Gabra1 knockdown, but all mice ultimately responded at equivalent rates. Response rates represent both trained responses/min. (d) Unlike with adolescent-onset knockdown, knockdown mice here inhibited responses that were unlikely to be reinforced during training. (e) Also, knockdown mice could differentiate between responses that were more, or less, likely to be reinforced during a probe test. Mice with broad mPFC knockdown responded more overall. Means+SEMs,*p<0.05,**p<0.001. # signifies higher rates of responding overall in the “broad prelimbic” group, p<0.05. Total control n=14, broad prelimbic knockdown n=8, caudal prelimbic knockdown n=8.