Fig. 4: Astrocytic activation modulates long term memory consolidation.
From: Spatial transcriptomics reveal neuron–astrocyte synergy in long-term memory
a, Experimental scheme. AAV expression constructs GfaABC1D-mCherry-CalEx (or GfaABC1D-tdTomato) were injected bilaterally into BLA C57B/6 mice 12 h after fear conditioning training. Mice were subjected to the context test, altered context tone test and open field test at the indicated times. b, Mice expressing CalEx exhibited reduced freezing compared with the tdT control group in the context test (tdTomato: n = 10 mice, CalEx: n = 9 mice), both groups exhibited comparable freezing in altered context but CalEx showed reduced freezing in the tone test than tdT control group (n = 10 mice). Data are mean ± s.e.m.; two-tailed Student’s t-test. c, MERFISH analysis shows spatially resolved peri-engram cells surrounding tdT+ neurons. d, Igfbp2 expression is enriched in astrocytes surrounding tdT+ neurons. MERFISH data; two-sided Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test. e, Analysis of MERFISH data shows that Fos expression is induced in peri-engram astrocytes in the FR condition relative to the NF condition. Two-sided Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test. f, Experimental scheme. AAV constructs for expression of U6-Igfbp2 guide RNA (gRNA) (or U6-negative control (NC) gRNA) were bilaterally injected to CAG-Cas9 mice, seven days before fear conditioning training. Mice were subjected to the context test, altered context tone test and open field test at the indicated times. g, Mice expressing Igfbp2 gRNA showed reduced freezing compared with the control group in the context test, altered context test and reduced freezing in the tone test. NC gRNA: n = 8 mice, Igfbp2 gRNA: n = 10 mice; data are mean ± s.e.m.; unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-test.
