Fig. 5
BTBR mice show social interaction deficits but no change in social memory at P30. C57BL/6J and BTBR underwent the three-chamber social interaction test followed by a social memory test at P30. A. Schematic of behavioral testing and heatmaps of time spent in each chamber during testing. B. Three chamber social interaction test. Time spent in the chamber with an empty enclosure (empty), middle chamber and chamber with an age-, strain- and sex-matched stranger mouse in the enclosure (social). C57BL/6J mice spent significantly more time exploring the social chamber (Sidak’s post hoc test, Empty vs. Middle t32 = 10.63 p < 0.0001, Empty vs. Social t32 = 7.365 p < 0.0001, Middle vs. Social t32 = 18.48 p < 0.0001), whereas BTBR mice showed no significant preference for the social chamber (Sidak’s post hoc test, Empty vs. Middle t27 = 4.843 p = 0.0001, Empty vs. Social t27 = 1.76 p = 0.2458, Middle vs. Social t27 = 2.045 p = 0.1446). C57BL/6J, n = 33 (17 females, 16 males); BTBR, n = 28 (17 females, 11 males). C. Schematic of social memory behavioral testing and heatmaps of time spent in each chamber during testing. D. Social memory test. Time spent exploring the chamber with the same mouse from the previous test (familiar), middle chamber, and chamber with a novel, age, strain and sex-matched stranger mouse in the enclosure (stranger). Both C57BL/6J and BTBR mice showed a preference for the stranger mouse (Sidak’s post hoc test, C57BL/6J: Stranger vs. Middle t25 = 9.019 p < 0.0001, Stranger vs. Familiar t25 = 3.366 p = 0.0074, Middle vs. Familiar t25 = 11.14 p < 0.0001; BTBR: Stranger vs. Middle t30 = 5.282 p < 0.0001, Stranger vs. Familiar t30 = 2.533 p = 0.0494, Middle vs. Familiar t30 = 2.237 p = 0.0955. C57BL/6J, n = 26 (13 females, 13 males); BTBR, n = 31 (14 females, 17 males). No sex differences were found for either strain in the three-chamber social interaction test (p > 0.64) or social memory test (p > 0.11). Male individual datapoints are depicted as squares, and female datapoints as circles for transparency. *p < 0.05