Figure 3. Photoinhibition of Forelimb Somatosensory Cortex Abolishes Adaptation but Not Reward-Based Learning.

(A) Task design: ChR2 was expressed in GABA neurons. The applied neuronal perturbation was achieved by photo-activating GABA neurons through an optical fiber. The adaptation task was performed in three vGAT-ChR2 mice. During perturbation trials, the laser was on concurrently with the force field (force field, 100 ms duration; laser at 50 Hz, 100 ms duration).

(B) Temporally averaged trajectories across all control sessions (n = 12 sessions from 3 mice), coloring as in Figure 1B.

(C) Temporally averaged trajectories across all photoinhibition sessions (n = 17 sessions, across the same 3 mice), coloring as in Figure 1B.

(D) Averaged perpendicular displacement at position 2 across sessions, with (blue) and without (black) photoinhibition (smoothed mean [5 trials] ± SEM shown for visualization), **p = 0.001, (difference in the last ten perturbation trials, t test), ***p < 0.0001, (difference in the first ten washout trials, t test).

(E) Quantification of all the control sessions, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, (t test). Mean ± SEM.

(F) Quantification of all the photoinhibition sessions. Mean ± SEM.

(G) Behavioral performance across all sessions in the target-shift task with (blue) or without (black) photoinhibition. All sessions averaged at position 2; there was no significant difference with or without photoinhibition, p = 0.57 (two-way ANOVA). Mean ± SEM.

(H) Quantification of all the control sessions. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (t test). Mean ± SEM.

(I) Quantification of all the photoinhibition sessions, **p < 0.001 (t test). Mean ± SEM.