Fig. 1

Representative images showing immunofluorescence for arginine vasopressin (AVP), Fos (a marker for recent neuronal activity), and nuclear boundaries (DAPI) within paraventricular hypothalamus (a). Animals were surgically infused with viral vectors containing AVP within the posterodorsal medial amygdala. The expression of cargos was dependent on the availability of Cre recombinase in the genome of animals. Examples from Cre− and Cre+ are depicted with the scale bar of 10 μm. Effects of experimental manipulation on the paraventricular hypothalamus neurons co-labeled with AVP and Fos in response to cat odor exposure (b). The number of co-labeled neurons relative to the total number of neurons is depicted on the ordinate. Violin plot depicts the median and inter-quartile range along with the raw values for all data points (n underneath the abscissa). Solid lines parallel to abscissa represent the mean for the control group. Stochastic expectation and experimental observation of co-labeled neurons in the treated (Cre+, c) and control (Cre−, d) groups. The raw values for each individual animal are depicted. Solid lines parallel to the abscissa represent mean expectation for that group