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. 2022 Aug 12;13:4748. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32461-3

Fig. 6. Chemogenetic activation of POA-projecting medulla neurons promotes NREM sleep.

Fig. 6

a Schematic of chemogenetic activation. AAVrg-Cre was bilaterally injected in the POA, AAV-DIO-hM3D(Gq)-mCherry was unilaterally injected in the VLM of wild-type mice. Right, Fluorescence image of a coronal section in the VLM (blue box above) showing expression of excitatory DREADDs (n = 8 mice). Mouse brain figure adapted from Allen mouse brain atlas. Red, mCherry, Blue, DAPI. Scale bar 100 μm. b Schematic of drug administration and sleep recording. c Wake time per hour over a 12-h time window following CNO (1 mg/kg, i.p. red circles) and saline (black circles) treatments. Right, quantitation of the total wake time (P = 0.001), wake bouts (P = 0.106), bout durations (P = 0.032) over 3-h after treatments. d Quantitation of hourly NREM sleep time over 12-h, the total NREM time (P = 0.0008), bouts (P = 0.0017), and bout durations (P = 0.517) over 3-h after CNO and saline treatments. e Quantitation of hourly REM sleep time over 12-h, the total REM time (P = 0.861), bouts (P = 0.837), and bout durations (P = 0.797) over 3-h after CNO and saline treatments. Data are mean ± SEM in panel c–e. For all statistics, n = 9 animals, two-sided paired t-test, *P < 0.05, **p < 0.01. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.