Figure 2.

Effect of inhibiting zona incerta GABAergic cells on active avoidance responses. A, Effect of green light applied in the zona incerta on ACS+LCS trials (blue) and on LCS alone trials (red) for mice that express eArch3.0 in GABAergic zona incerta cells (Vgat-ZI-Arch). ACS+LCS trials measure the effect of optogenetic stimulation on avoidance responses driven by the ACS. LCS alone trials measure the ability of the optogenetic stimulation to drive avoidance responses in the absence of the ACS. Plots in all figures display mean ± SEM, and asterisks denote Tukey’s tests. The plots also show data for the no opsin group of animals (open triangles), which compares the effect of all the light patterns used (combined together and delivered in various brain regions) versus ACS. The right panels show trial speed, trial velocity, and intertrial speed for the data in the left panels. The x-axis denotes green light power in mW. B, Effect of green light applied specifically in the zona incerta at different light powers on ACS+LCS trials (blue) and on LCS alone trials (red) for no opsin mice. The green light applied in zona incerta without opsin activation does not affect avoidance responses driven by the ACS and is not able to effectively drive avoidance responses in the absence of the ACS. The x-axis denotes green light power in mW.