Figure 3. Activation of ARCDrd1 neurons promotes food exploration.
(A) Foraging paradigm: Habituated mice were injected with CNO for 20 min without food, and then placed in an arena with eight pellets of SD buried under 3-cm-thick corn bedding on the cage floor and video recorded for 20 min.
(B) Total feeding duration during the 20-min test. Student two-tailed t test; n = 9/group.
(C) First pellet feeding duration. Student two-tailed t test; n = 7–8/group.
(D) Latency to the acquisition of the second pellet after the acquisition of the first pellet. Student two-tailed t test; n = 7–8/group.
(E) Annotated consumption or non-consummatory behaviors of each mouse during the test after the acquisition of the first pellet and before the acquisition of the second pellet. Consumption time of Drd1-hM3Dq and AgRP-hM3Dq mice is shown as orange and green, respectively. Time spent performing non-consummatory behaviors is shown as dark gray. Pie charts indicated the percentage time spent consuming food (orange or green), moving (black), digging (gray), and other non-consummatory behaviors (light gray). Data are represented as mean ± standard error of the mean. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ns, not significant.