Figure 5.

Interaction between lighting condition and circadian phase in GABA_AR protein-IR in whole SCN and the dorsal and ventral subdivisions of the SCN. Lighting condition (LD vs DD) had a main effect on both extrasynaptic GABA_Aδ (A–C) and synaptic GABA_Aγ2 (D–F) protein-IR. There were no main effects of circadian phase (active phase vs inactive phase) on the protein-IR of either subunit. Lighting condition and circadian phase did not interact to affect protein-IR of extrasynaptic GABA_Aδ protein (A–C). There was an interaction of lighting condition and circadian phase in the protein-IR of synaptic GABA_Aγ2 receptors across the whole SCN and in all subdivisions, with the exception of the rostral SCN (D–F). Lighting condition and circadian phase interacted to affect the ratio of mean protein-IR of extrasynaptic GABA_Aδ to synaptic GABA_Aγ2 in the retinorecipient (central posterior) region of the SCN (G), where extrasynaptic receptor protein-IR was relatively higher during the subjective night and synaptic receptor protein-IR was relatively higher during the subjective day. This effect was significant in the dorsal central posterior SCN (H) and almost reached significance in the ventral central posterior SCN (I). *p ≤ 0.05 LD versus DD, #p ≤ 0.05 for interaction between lighting regimen and circadian phase. Statistics in Table 4.