Fig. 5

Optogenetic stimulation of mPFC SOM interneurons rescues the social deficiency in SOM-Cre/Magel2 KO mice. A Cartoon showing the injection of AAV virus. B Neurons in the mPFC infected with AAV-DIO-ChR2-mCherry (red) co-stained with SOM interneurons (green). Quantification of specificity of ChR2-mCherry to label SOM interneurons (n = 8 per group). C Sample traces of in vivo photo-tagged single unit spike recordings before (top) and after ChR2-optogenetic stimulation (bottom). D Statistics of SOM firing rates before and after ChR2-optogenetic stimulation (n = 15 neurons from 6 mice). E Representative movement traces showing the locations of an mCherry-expressing control mouse (top) and a ChR2-containing mouse (bottom) in the three-chamber social test. F Quantification of time spent by mCherry and ChR2-treated mice in each chamber. ChR2 mice spent more time exploring the chamber containing the novel animal relative to novel object. In contrast, no significant difference in the time spent exploring the compartment containing the novel animal as compared to the time spent exploring the unfamiliar object for mCherry mice. G ChR2-injected mice spent significantly more time sniffing and engaging with the novel mouse as compared with the unfamiliar object. In contrast, mCherry mice spent equal amounts of time sniffing the novel mouse and unfamiliar object. H Social interaction index was significantly higher in ChR2 mice. Sample size of 10 in F, G, and H was calculated. I Example path recordings during the entire 30 min of the open field test. Quantification of the distance moved for 5-min time bins (J), the total 30-min period (K), and time spent by AAV-ChR2 mice in the center region (L). Sample size of 10 in J, K, and L was determined. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test. Unpaired Student’s t-test. ^***p < 0.001, ^$$$p < 0.001, compared to mCherry group; ^^^p < 0.001 for novel mouse vs. novel object; “ns” shows not significantly different