Figure 5.

Similar Processing of Odor Concentrations in Naive Females and Mothers

(A and B) Two-photon micrograph of a representative field used for imaging in a naive female (A) and a mother (B). Scale bars, 20 μm.

(C and D) Calcium transients elicited by the neurons in the field shown in (A) and (B) (cells marked by numbers in A and B) in response to a 5-ppm odor concentration (left) and 500 ppm (right). Each line represents a single trial. Black asterisks denote statistically significant responses. Vertical bars, 25% ΔF/F.

(E) Cumulative distribution of the percentage of MCs responding to 1–6 odors in naive females (blue) and in mothers (red). Each dashed line represents an individual mouse. Left:5 ppm; center, 500 ppm; right, 5 ppm (solid lines) and 500 ppm (dashed lines) combined. ^∗p < 0.05, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.

(F) Cumulative distribution of peak odor-evoked responses in naive females (blue) and in mothers (red). 5 ppm (solid lines) and 500 ppm (dashed lines). Inset: mean ± SEM peak amplitude of odor-evoked calcium transients per cell in 5 ppm and 500 ppm. ^∗p < 0.05, Mann-Whitney U test.

(G) Gain control analysis for the transition from 5 ppm to 500 ppm odor-evoked responses. Odors were ranked for each cell according to the response amplitude during 5-ppm trials, and the same order was kept for each cell in the 500-ppm trials. The tuning curves are averaged across all cells from 5 ppm (naive female and mother, blue and red dotted lines, respectively) and 500 ppm (blue and red solid lines) that showed responses to at least one of six tested odors (n = 4 naive females, 382 MCs; 4 mothers, 343 MCs). The black line represents a curve based on the same linear transformation (1.40 × 5 ppm response + 0.09) both for naive females and mothers.