Fibre photometry of LPS-evoked activity in the cNST (left). A GCaMP6s AAV was targeted to the cNST of Vglut2-cre mice (see Extended Data Fig. 5e ). Neural responses following LPS (dark blue traces, 0.5 mg kg -1 , n = 6; light blue traces, 0.1 mg kg -1 , n = 4) and control saline (black traces, n = 6) (middle). Traces display mean (solid) and s.e.m. (shaded). The orange traces depict responses after bilateral vagotomy ( n = 6). The saline and LPS injections were done as successive stimulations in the same animals. Scale bar, delta F/F . The red arrow indicates time of injections. Quantification of responses (right). AUC, area under the curve. Values are mean +/- s.e.m.; Wilcoxon test (saline versus LPS), P = 0.03; Mann-Whitney U -test (LPS versus vagotomy), P = 0.004; Mann-Whitney U -test (saline versus vagotomy), P = 0.18. Note the severe loss of LPS-evoked responses (approximately 80%) following removal of the vagal communication pathway. Schematics were created using BioRender ( https://biorender.com ).
