Medium spiny neuron electrophysiological properties across male rats and female rats in different estrous cycle phases in the nucleus accumbens core: Excitatory synaptic input, action potential, and intrinsic properties

This dataset presents electrophysiological properties from whole-cell patch clamped nucleus accumbens core medium spiny neurons from male rats and female rats recorded in different estrous cycle phases.  Excitatory synaptic input, action potential, and intrinsic properties are presented in an analyzed format, as well as the original electrophysiological recordings of each neuron. These data were originally presented across two different papers (Proaño et al., 2018, 2020) and further analyzed in an additional paper (Long et al., 2024), all of which are cited below. These data were key for establishing that nucleus accumbens neuron electrical function changed across the estrous cycle in response to its associated hormones, programming a phase-dependent  sex difference in adulthood. This finding provided a new framework for understanding how biological sex and hormone cyclicity regulate the neurons implicated in motivated behaviors and related functions and disorders.

Methods
This dataset was collected using whole-cell patch clamp recordings of medium spiny neurons in adult male and female rat nucleus accumbens core. The recordings were analyzed to generate standard attributes describing the biophysical properties of these neurons and were compared by sex and female estrous cycle phase. Please see the two originating articles for more details: Proano et al., 2018 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29947588/) and Proano et al., 2020  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32401164/).