Fig. 4.

Sex-touch responses vary by cortical area and have population structure. a Fitted β_touch of all touch and sex-touch neurons across cortical areas (axis clipped at + /−1.6, all data used for calculations, all data plotted in Supplementary Fig. 2a). Colored dots indicate neurons recorded in female (red) and male (blue) animals. In S1, firing rates of both male and female neurons were increased by social touch (median male β_touch = 0.44, p_male = 0.000018, t = 4.57, median female β_touch = 0.30, p_female = 0.0015, Z = 3.17, male vs. female p = 0.08, Z = 1.78, and N = 79/71). In VMC, ACC, and A1, firing rates of both male and female neurons were generally decreased by touch (VMC: median male β_touch = −0.16, p_male = 0.0043, t = −2.93, median female β_touch = −0.25, p_female = 0.0037, Z = −2.91, male vs. female p = 0.62, Z = 0.50, and N = 66/51, ACC: median male β_touch = −0.26, p_male = 0.048, t = −2.81, median female β_touch = −0.11, p_female = 0.065, t = −1.95, male vs. female p = 0.12, t = −1.83, and N = 5/22, and A1: median male β_touch = −0.18, p_male = 0.067, t = −1.91, median female ${\beta }_{\mathrm{touch}}$ = −0.10, p_female = 0.012, t = −2.58, male vs. female p = 0.32, t = −0.99, and N = 27/67). In PrL, neither male nor female neurons were significantly modulated as a population, and there was no difference between the sexes (median male β_touch = −0.015, p_male = 0.89, median female β_touch = −0.067, p_female = 0.32, t = −1.02, male vs. female p = 0.76, Z = 0.31, and N = 11/20). All: t tests (p_female, p_female) and unpaired t test with unequal variance (male vs. female) if normal by a Lilliefors test, else Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and Mann–Whitney U test, respectively. b Modulation of activity (in fold change) during social touch with male and female conspecifics is highly correlated (VMC/S1/A1: Kendall’s τ = 0.40/0.38/0.32, all p < 10⁻²³/10⁻²⁷/10⁻¹³). Touch neurons are indicated by green dots, female/male preferring sex-touch neurons are indicated by pink/blue dots, and nonsignificant neurons are indicated by gray dots, Kendall’s τ, and p value above