Distinct prefrontal projections oppositely orchestrate social competition and hierarchy

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is known as a hub of social hierarchy determination in the brain, Using high throughput single cell transcriptomic analysis and projection-specific genetic manipulation, we discovered that the expression level of Pou3f1 in mPFC-VTA neurons controls social hierarchy. mPFC from social dominants (R1, n=5) and subordinates (R4, n=5) tissue punches were collected and dissected, and the resulting cells were subjected to a 10X Genomics scRNA-seq pipeline内侧前额叶皮层（medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC）是公认的大脑社会层级判定中枢。本研究通过高通量单细胞转录组分析与投射特异性基因操控技术，发现内侧前额叶-腹侧被盖区（ventral tegmental area, VTA）神经元内Pou3f1的表达水平可调控社会层级。我们收集并解剖了社会优势个体（R1组，n=5）与社会从属个体（R4组，n=5）的内侧前额叶皮层组织穿刺样本，随后对所得细胞开展10X Genomics单细胞RNA测序（scRNA-seq）流程实验。