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Figure 8 | BMC Biology

Figure 8

From: Food-associated cues alter forebrain functional connectivity as assessed with immediate early gene and proenkephalin expression

Figure 8

Circuit diagrams of the regions exhibiting interregional gene-expression correlations elicited by food cues (right) or water cues (left). Grey arrows represent relatively fewer numbers of interregional gene-expression correlations and black arrows represent relatively greater numbers of these correlations. Intracortical and intrastriatal interregional gene-expression correlations predominated in the water cues group. In this group, there were relatively few corticostriatal correlations, and cortical engagement of the shell of the nucleus accumbens was greater than that of the core subregion. The water cues group also exhibited correlated gene expression between the hippocampus and the basolateral amygdala. In contrast, the number of intracortical and intrastriatal correlations was relatively smaller and the number of corticostriatal correlations was relatively higher in the food cues group. There was also a shift of cortical correlations to the core of the nucleus accumbens in rats exposed to food cues. Another striking difference between the groups included the loss of the correlated gene expression between the hippocampus and the basolateral amygdala. The basolateral amygdala in the food cues group exhibited a great degree of correlated immediate early gene expression with the cortex and the striatum. These observations suggest that shifts in correlated activity between the cortex and striatum, particularly the nucleus accumbens core, and the basolateral amygdala are involved in the generation of a motivated state by salient external cues. For abbreviations, see legend to Figure 1.

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