Figure 1
Anxiety vs performance during exposure of the Ahi1 knockout mouse to a novel stressor. (a, b) Thigmotaxis in the open field arena. (a, upper panel) Track visualizations of typical Ahi1+/+ (left, blue tracing) and Ahi1+/− (right, yellow tracing) mice inside the open field arenas. (a, lower panel) Heat map visualizations of Ahi1+/+ (left) and Ahi1+/− (right) mice inside the open field arena. For each genotype, all relevant tracks were merged into one heat map. The color of each pixel represents the mean time subjects located at that specific location. (b) Bar graphs depicting the proportion (percent) of time that mice from each genotype spent in the center of the open field arena. Compared with Ahi1+/+ mice, Ahi1+/− mice displayed significantly more time in the center when placed in the novel, highly stressogenic open field arena. (c, d) Thigmotaxis in the first-time swim-to-visible platform task inside a Morris water maze (MWM) arena. (c) Track visualizations of typical Ahi1+/+ and Ahi1+/− mice (upper panel) and heat map visualizations of group means (lower panel) in this task are presented as detailed above. (d) Bar graphs depicting the proportion (percentage) of time that mice from each genotype spent in the center of the MWM arena. (e, f) First-time performance in the swim-to-visible platform task. Ahi1+/− mice outperformed their Ahi1+/+ controls in the MWM visible platform escape task, manifested by the latter’s longer escape latency (e) and marginally longer distance swim (f). (g, h) Velocities during exposure to the novel stressors. Travelling (g) and swimming (h) velocities were similar across genotypes. *P<0.05. **P<0.01. n=12 (Ahi1+/+), n=13 (Ahi1+/−). Data are expressed as mean±s.e.m.
