C57 b6j mice

Adult male Balb/C mice and C57B6J mice were purchased from Jackson Laboratory. The experimental study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Minnesota and carried out in accordance with the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

All experiments were performed on three to five-month-old male mice. All mice were C57/B6J mice (The Jackson Laboratory), except for mPFC terminal activation and inactivation experiments, which were in 129S6/SvEvTac (Taconic Biosciences). Wildtype mice were acquired directly from The Jackson Laboratory. PV-IRES-cre
(RRID:IMSR_JAX:017320) and SOM-IRES-cre (RRID:IMSR_JAX:018973) were maintained on a C57/B6J background and mice used for experiments were heterozygous, produced from a homozygous to wildtype cross. C57/B6J mice were group housed throughout all completed experiments. 129S6/SvEvTac were singly housed, with enrichment (nestlets), starting after surgical procedures. Littermates were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. When group housed, they were maintained in the same cage. Sample sizes reported include only mice with verified, accurate placements and/or viral expression in the relevant brain regions; excluded mice are noted in each applicable section of the methods. All procedures were conducted in accordance with National Institutes of Health regulations and approved by the Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees, the Hunter College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and the Weill Cornell Medical College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

All animal procedures were performed in accordance with the Virginia Commonwealth University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee guidelines and requirements. Skeletally mature, 16-week-old male C57/B6J mice (Jackson Laboratories, Bar Harbor, ME) were housed in a light and temperature-controlled environment with free access to food and water. There were 7 experimental groups (Table 2). VEGF concentrations of 2.5 μg/mL and 10 μg/mL were chosen to be similar to previous literature where 2 μg/mL was used in a skin defect model with similar aptamer-functionalized hydrogels, and 10 μg/mL was used in a femoral fracture model.^{20 (link),25 (link)}