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Fig. 4 | BMC Biology

Fig. 4

From: Serotonin promotes exploitation in complex environments by accelerating decision-making

Fig. 4

The serotonergic neurons ADF and NSM respond physiologically during re-feeding. a Left: traces of fluorescence from NSM::GCaMP (grey) and ADF::GCaMP (black) transgenics re-feeding on a large bacterial lawn. The time of encountering the edge of the lawn was defined as t = 0 . Plots depict mean ± SEM and the number of animals assayed for each strain is noted in parentheses. Inset: NSM was not activated when the animals abruptly paused due to gently colliding with an obstacle. The yellow shading denotes the time following the encounter (t >0 ). Right: a zoomed view of the calcium transients shortly prior to the encounter. Fluorescence in ADF but not NSM neurons was significantly higher than baseline during the 5 sec preceding the encounter (mean intensities were compared to their respective baselines using a t-test, P <0.01). (b, c) GCaMP fluorescence in ADF and NSM in osm-6 mutant backgrounds and their respective wild-type background control groups using an improved imaging system (see Methods). The velocity of the tracked ADF neurons was reduced prior to the encounter in the control group but not in osm-6 mutants (panel (b), bottom, t-test, P <0.01). NSM activity was not abolished by the mutation

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