All procedures were approved by NYULMC IACUC in compliance with the NIH guidelines for Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Adult mice 12–38 weeks of age were used for all studies. Mice were housed in 18–23°C with 40–60 % humidity under a 12 h light-dark cycle (10 p.m. to 10 a.m. light), with food and water available ad libitum. Animals used for CTB retrograde tracing and RNA-Seq experiments were 14–16 week old wild-type C57BL/6N male purchased from Charles River. Male Esr1–2A-Cre (14–38 weeks, Jackson Stock No. 017911), male Vgat-ires-Cre × Ai6 (12–16 weeks, Jackson stock No. 016962 and 007906)52 (link), male Vglut1-ires-Cre × Ai6 (12–16 weeks, Jackson stock No. 023527 and 007906) 53 (link) were used for functional, recording and histological experiments. Stimulus animals were adult C57BL/6N female and male or BALB/c male mice (> 8 weeks) purchased from Charles River. Stimulus animals were group housed. After surgery, all test animals were singly housed. All the experiments were performed during the dark cycle of the animals.