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. 2020 Jan 25;21(3):790. doi: 10.3390/ijms21030790

Figure 1.

Figure 1

α1-ARs-mediated effect on AMPA EPSCs is preserved in ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons after one cocaine/saline injection. (A) The bar graph shows total locomotor activity recorded from saline- (0.9%, white bar; n = 10) and cocaine-treated (15 mg/kg i.p., black bar; n = 10) animals. The locomotion of cocaine-treated animals was significantly increased when compared to saline-treated controls (Unpaired t-test p < 0.001). (B,C) Representative recordings from saline- and cocaine-treated animals, respectively, showing that phenylephrine superfusion (10 μM, 10 min) induces a significant increase in AMPA EPSCs amplitude in VTA DA neurons in both groups. (D) A time course summary of phenylephrine’s effect on AMPA EPSCs recorded from VTA DA neurons from saline- (n = 10) and cocaine- (n = 10) treated animals at 8 min from control recordings (2 min intervals), 5 and 10 min phenylephrine (10 μM), and 5 and 10 min washout (One-way ANOVA, Newman-Keuls post-hoc). (E) The bar graph shows that 10 min of phenylephrine application resulted in a ~28% increase in AMPA EPSCs amplitude in VTA DA neurons from saline- (n = 10/10) and cocaine- (n = 10/10) treated animals when compared to control recordings (One-way ANOVA, Newman-Keuls post-hoc.). One-way ANOVA, Newman-Keuls post-hoc * p < 0.05. Unpaired t-test *** p < 0.001. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA, Bonferroni post-hoc # p < 0.05. n = the number of cells recorded/number of animals.