Fig. 3.

Decreasing CaMKII α-hM4Di-positive cell activity in the DCN changes firing properties of the circuitry. A Timeline of experiments highlighting unit recordings. B, C Left, normalized firing rate (colormap) of a representative unit after NaCl (B) and CNO (C) administration for each intensity (lines) and each frequency (columns) tested. Right, a different representation of the same representative examples in the left, showing firing rate per frequency for each intensity. Data was upsampled 3 times in the intensity and frequency dimensions. D, E Units firing rate (left), tuning width (middle), and best frequency (right) for stimulation at 80dBSPL, at each unit best frequency. Animals expressing hM4Di (D) showed a significant decrease in firing rate (left), decrease in tuning width (middle), and increase in best frequency (right). Control animals expressing eYFP (E) showed no significant change in any of those parameters. Individual unit values are shown in green (NaCl) or purple (CNO) condition. Black line indicates the mean ± SEM. Insets D and E (pie) shows the portion of units decreasing (blue), increasing (orange), or not changing (green) values upon CNO administration. Insets D and E (scatters) show distribution of unit values divided in groups for decrease, increase, or no change (for larger representation see Additional file 1: Fig. S1). n = 11 and 7 mice, 122 and 102 units, for NE hM4Di+ and NE eYFP, respectively; *p <0.05; ***p = 1.3e −4