You see, in the methods part 2.3, you say you give Tetrabenazine (TBZ) to the rats. TBZ is very important for your experiment because you use it to block VMAT2 and prove your idea about DAT-VMAT2 balance.
But here is my question: When exactly you inject the TBZ? You write the dose (3 mg/kg) and that it is intraperitoneal injection, but you don’t say if you give it one time only, or every day for 4 weeks together with other drugs, or just before you take the samples.
This is very important! Because the effect of TBZ on brain is not very long. If you inject only one time, the effect maybe finish after few hours. But your treatment and samples are after 4 weeks. So if you don’t give TBZ at the right time, maybe the VMAT2 is not blocked when you check the results. Then, your big findings in Fig 6, 7, 8 about TBZ effect are not true, because the effect is already gone.
Can you clarify the timing and schedule for the TBZ injections? Without this, it is difficult to know if the VMAT2 was really inhibited when you measured everything, and this can change the main conclusion of your paper.