Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Opioid withdrawal engages a habenular subpopulation responsive to aversive states
doi: 10.64898/2026.04.29.721196
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Experimental paradigm for spontaneous withdrawal consisting of 7 days of twice daily escalating doses of morphine (or saline control), followed by a single final dose and 24 hours of abstinence before tissue collection. (B) Example images of anti-Fos immunostaining after spontaneous withdrawal paradigm, counterstained with DAPI. Dotted lines indicate boundaries of MHb and LHb. Arrow indicates Fos + cluster in the LHb. (C) Average distribution of Fos + cells across anterior-posterior axis of the habenula for each treatment condition. Contour lines indicate density of Fos + cells, normalized to the maximum density in the saline condition. (D) Quantification of the density of Fos + neurons in saline control and spontaneous withdrawal conditions. Each circle represents the mean for an individual animal. n=186 sections total from 10 mice per condition. **p< 0.01 by t-test. (E) Quantification of Fos + cells in all sections, binned every 400 μm along the A-P axis. Each circle represents one tissue section. (F) Same data in D, separated by sex. Two-Way ANOVA, treatment effect, **p< 0.01; sex effect, n.s.; interaction, n.s. Fisher’s post hoc, **p< 0.01. Open circles indicate female, filled circles indicate male.
Article Snippet: Sections were washed in 1xPBS and mounted on coverslips with Fluoromount-G with DAPI (Fisher Scientific, 50-112-8966).
Techniques: Saline, Control, Immunostaining