Fig. 3. Electrophysiological analysis of LC neurons.

a Schematic overview of the locus coeruleus (LC) and its position in the adult mouse brain, bregma −5.40 and −5.52 (the coordinates were according to the mouse brain atlas⁴³⁾. Green triangles represent the LC. b Confocal images showing TH-positive signal (green), neurobiotin-positive signal (red) and a merge of both signals (yellow). Upper images show an overview of the LC at a low-magnification (×4) and lower images display signals of analyzed single-cell at high-magnification (×60 oil). c Electrophysiological traces of single cells in the night phase of WT, Kcnk9KO^mat and Kcnk9KO^hom animals. Recordings from synaptically isolated spontaneously active LC neurons reveal increased pacemaker frequency in LC neurons from Kcnk9KO^hom mice during dark phase. d Scatter dot-plot of mean frequencies including all analyzed cells in the day and night phase of WT (light n = 46, N = 5, dark n = 23, N = 3), Kcnk9KO^mat (light n = 41, N = 5, dark n = 26, N = 4) and Kcnk9KO^hom (light n = 22, N = 3, dark n = 30, N = 5) animals. Ordinary one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s multiple comparison post hoc test, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01. Values are means ± SEM. N = number of mice, n = total number of cells. Statistical analyses and approaches are provided in Supplementary Table 1. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.