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. 2019 Oct 3;8:e48408. doi: 10.7554/eLife.48408

Figure 8. DA neurons projecting to medial or lateral shell of the nucleus accumbens display distinct in vivo firing rates.

(A1, B1) Spontaneous in vivo extracellular single-unit activities of a representative lNAcc-projecting DA neuron located in the mSN (A1) and a representative mNAcc-projecting DA neuron located in the VTA (B1), shown as 10 s of original recording traces (scale bar: 0.2 mV, 1 s). Note the differences in firing frequency. (A2, B2) 30 s raster plots (scale bar: 1 s). Blue lines indicate pauses. Note the differences in pause duration. (A3, B3) ISI-distributions. Note the differences in overall shape and maximal ISIs. Inset, averaged AP waveform showing biphasic extracellular action potentials in high resolution (scale bar: 0.2 mV, 1 ms). (A4, B4) Confocal images of retrogradely traced, extracellularly recorded and juxtacellularly labelled DA neurons, the location of the neurons is displayed in the bottom right images. (C) Anatomical mapping of all extracellularly recorded and juxtacellularly labelled neurons (projected to bregma −3.16 mm; lNAcc in magenta, mNAcc in orange). Insert, FG-injection sites in lNAcc and mNAcc (FG in blue, TH in green). (D) Scatter dot-plots (line at median) showing significant differences in firing frequency (Hz) and pause duration (s).

Figure 8.

Figure 8—figure supplement 1. lNAcc and mNAcc-projecting midbrain DA neurons do not exhibit significantly different in vivo firing properties.

Figure 8—figure supplement 1.

(A1–P1) Scatter dot-plots (line at median) and bar graphs showing significant differences in firing frequency (Hz) and pause duration (s) (A2–P2) Feature maps of respective parameters.
Figure 8—figure supplement 2. Low success rate in identifying mPFC-projecting DA neurons.

Figure 8—figure supplement 2.

(A) (Top panel) FG-injection sites (0.002%, 2 × 1 μl, 50 nl/min) in PrL (bregma: 1.98 mm, lateral: 0.3 mm, ventral: 1.5 mm) and IL (bregma: 1.98 mm, lateral: 0.3 mm, ventral:2.1 mm) nucleus. (bottom panel) Retrogradely FG-labelled neurons in VTA and SN (B) Anatomical mapping of all extracellularly recorded and juxtacellularly labelled neurons in mPFC-traced mice (open red circle: TH+/FG+, open blue circle: TH+/FG-, filled blue circle: TH-) (C1–C4) In vivo extracellular activity of the single mPFC-projecting midbrain DA neuron recorded, shown as 10 s of original recording traces (C1; scale bar: 0.2 mV, 1 s) and 30 s raster plots (C2; scale bar: 1 s). (C3) ISI-distributions. Inset, averaged AP waveform showing biphasic extracellular action potential in high resolution (scale bar: 0.2 mV, 1 ms). (C4) Confocal images of extracellularly recorded and juxtacellularly labelled neuron, the location of the neuron at bregma −3.28 mm is shown in the bottom right image.