Fig. 5: Distinct population-level reward representations in the mPFC. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: Distinct population-level reward representations in the mPFC.

From: Sex differences in neural representations of social and nonsocial reward in the medial prefrontal cortex

Fig. 5

a mPFC population activity in a 3 s window around reward was able to decode the sex of the animal with higher accuracy on social than on sucrose trials. Unpaired t test (p = 1.70*10−6). N = 9 male mice, 5 female mice. b Decoders trained on female (n = 5 mice) mPFC neural reward responses decoded the reward type with higher accuracy than decoders trained on male (n = 9 mice) reward responses. Unpaired t test (p = 0.022). Decoding accuracy was calculated for each animal from all recorded neurons, with a trial-matched number of sucrose and social trials. All decoding was significantly greater than shuffled data, indicated by a dashed line at 50%. Mahalanobis distance was greater for social than sucrose reward in male (c, n = 101 social trials, 153 sucrose trials, 9 mice) and female (d, 104 social trials, 83 sucrose trials, 5 mice) mice. Unpaired t test (male: p = 1.71*10−8; female: p = 2.07*10−5). Trial-averaged population neural activity traces of sucrose (blue) and social (red) reward trials in male (e, left panel, n = 459 neurons, 9 mice) and female (f, left panel, n = 423 neurons, 5 mice) mice plotted on the first 3 PCs in state space. Arrowhead indicates direction of time. Filled green circle indicates reward onset. PC1 weights are higher for both social and sucrose reward neurons compared to other neurons in both male (e, middle panel) and female (f, middle panel) mice. One-way ANOVA (male: p = 9.22*10−17; female: p = 2.93*10−8) with post-hoc t tests (male — soc v other: p = 2.46*10−17, suc v other: p = 3.14*10−6, soc v suc: p = 0.076; female — soc v other: p = 6.21*10−7, suc v other: p = 2.11*10−5, soc v suc: p = 0.96). Euclidean distance separating PC-projected population vectors in a 3 s window around reward is significantly greater between social and sucrose trials than within each trial type in both male (e, right panel) and female (f, right panel) mice. Paired t test (male: p = 5.81*10−4; female: p = 0.0020). *p < 0.05. Shaded error regions indicate ± SEM. Dashed line at zero indicates reward onset. Box plots: center line denotes median, box edges indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles and whiskers extend to ±2.7σ.

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