Fig. 5: NPY knockdown in DRN/vlPAG exacerbates stress-induced anxiety.

a Representative images of NPY^DRN/vlPAG expression (purple) from a AAV-mCherry or AAV-Cre-GFP virus-injected Npy^lox/lox mouse. b Quantification of NPY fluorescent intensity percentage between AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups. Two-sided unpaired Student’s t test. c Percentage of body weight changes of group-housed AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups. Two-way ANOVA with post-hoc Šídák’s multiple comparisons test. d Average daily food intake of individual-housed AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups. Two-way ANOVA with post-hoc Šídák’s multiple comparisons test. e 4-h food intake of AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups under acute novelty stress. Two-way ANOVA with post-hoc Šídák’s multiple comparisons test. f, g Behavioral tests of AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups after novelty stress. f Percentages of time, travel distance in the center area and total travel distance in OFT after acute novelty stress. g Percentages of open-arm time in EPM. For percentage of time in the center area of OFT, two-sided unpaired Student’s t test with Welch’s correction; For total distance of OFT, two-sided Mann Whitney test; For the others, two-sided unpaired Student’s t test. h Percentage of body weight changes of AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups during 14 days of restraint stress. Two-way ANOVA with post-hoc Šídák’s multiple comparisons test. i, j Behavioral tests of AAV-mCherry and AAV-Cre-GFP Npy^lox/lox groups after 14 days of restraint stress. i Percentages of time, travel distance in the center area and total travel distance in OFT. j Percentages of open-arm time in EPM. For percentage of time in the center area of OFT, two-sided unpaired Student’s t test with Welch’s correction; For total distance of OFT, two-sided Mann Whitney test; For the others, two-sided unpaired Student’s t test. Data are shown as mean ± SEM. ‘n’ refers to mice number. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.