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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Nov 9.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2016 Mar 3;89(6):1291–1304. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.01.041

Figure 2. Anatomical and Electrophysiological Characteristics of PVN OT Neurons Projecting to the SON.

Figure 2

(A) Identification of a subset of OT neurons projecting from PVN to SON.

(A1) Scheme showing the injection of viruses in the SON and PVN.

(A2 and A3) Defined subset of back-labeled OT neurons (green) in dorso-caudal PVN displays consistent morphology: small oval somas (12 to 20 μm in diameter) with predominantly longer horizontal axes. The scale bar represents 50 μm in (A2) and 50 μm in (A3).

(A4 and A5) The morphology of these cells is clearly distinct from the typical magnocellular neurons with large cell bodies and less branching processes (A5).

(B) Functional differentiation of this subset of PVN OT neurons.

(B1) Current steps protocol starting from a hyperpolarizing current chosen to reach −100 mV (here 100 pA) followed by progressively more depolarizing current injections (upper trace). The representative changes in membrane potential for the parvOT and magnOT PVN neurons during the part of the current steps as indicated by the zoomed area are shown (lower traces). The ParvOT neurons (middle trace) do not display the transient outward rectification specific for the magnOT neurons (lower trace, arrow).

(B2) Photographs of a GFP-fluorescent parvOT neuron (upper) in the PVN (labeled by injection of CAV2-Cre into the SON and OT-DIO-GFP AAV in the PVN) and in the same area a typical magnOT neuron (lower) as indicated by the patch pipettes. The scale bars represent 20 μm.