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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Oct 17.
Published in final edited form as: Nature. 2022 Mar 16;603(7902):667–671. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04507-5

Figure 2: Social rank and competitive success is decoded by mPFC population dynamics.

Figure 2:

a, Neural trajectories of mPFC firing rate differ by relative rank during the tone presentation for win and lose trials in a lower dimensional common principal component (PC) sub-space (trajectories include a total of 20 mice, 27 sessions dominants: n=507 cells; subordinates: n=490 cells). b, Neural trajectory lengths for win (top left; 2-way RM-ANOVA effects of relative rank F(1,25)=1090,p=2×10−16 and interaction,F(1,25)=1660,p=3×10−14) and lose (bottom left; 2-way RM-ANOVA effect of relative rank F(1,25)=883,p=9×10−16 and interaction, F(1,25)=2995,p=9×10−16) trials. Firing rate variance is higher for relative subordinates (right bottom; number of neurons indicated in plots; win trials: KS test p=0.01, Wilcoxon rank-sum p=0.19; lose trials KS test p=5×10−7, Wilcoxon rank-sum p=2×10−9). c, SVM performance is higher than chance for decoding competitive success and relative rank (area under the receiving operating curve: AUC; gray: shuffled data performance; Wilcoxon rank-sum: competitive success p=2×10−4, relative rank p=2×10−4; Competitive success vs relative rank p=2×10−4). d, Neural trajectories of mPFC population firing rate by absolute rank (dominant (Dom)= rank 1; intermediates (Int)=ranks 2&3; subordinate (Sub)= rank 4) when performing the reward task alone vs in competition in a lower dimensional common PC sub-space (neurons in alone session: Dom=111, Int=259, Sub=140; competition: Dom=309, Int=359, sub=330). e, Left, trajectory during the tone is higher for subordinates during competition (2-way ANOVA main effect of rank F(2,38)=30.4, p=1×10−8, task F(1,38)=26.1, p=9×10−6 and interaction F(2,38)=70.1, p=1×10−13). Right, distance between alone and competition tone trajectories increases with rank (n reflects all possible combinations of alone vs competition trajectories;1-way ANOVA main effect of rank F(2,187)=536, p=3×10−78). Post-hoc comparisons are Bonferroni-corrected t-tests, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. 2-way ANOVAs were for rank and event (baseline vs event) or rank and trial-type and sample size indicated in plots. Data are presented as mean +/− SEM.