Fig. 5: Less startle scaling in WT male than WT female rats.

a Linear regressions of sound scaling versus baseline threshold for WT male (green) and female (gray) rats from the single experiment that varied prepulse sound level with a constant 100-ms delay. Subplots show increasing prepulse sound level from left to right. b Linear regressions of sound scaling versus baseline threshold for WT male and WT female rats from the three experiments that varied delay with a 14 dB (top) or 18 dB (bottom) prepulse. Subplots show decreasing delay from left to right. Red asterisks indicate prepulse conditions with a group difference in baseline threshold (p < 0.05, t test). This was not significant after controlling for multiple comparisons (p > 0.05, bootstrap ratio test), but these two prepulse conditions were excluded from ANCOVAs. c Linear regressions of startle scaling versus baseline saturation for WT male and WT female rats from the single experiment that varied the prepulse sound level with a constant 100 ms delay. Subplots show increasing prepulse sound level from left to right. d Linear regressions of startle scaling versus baseline saturation for WT male and female rats from the three experiments that varied delay with a 14- (top) or 18-dB (bottom) prepulse. Subplots show decreasing delay from left to right. For c, d black asterisks indicate prepulse conditions where WT male rats had lower startle scaling than WT female rats (p < 0.05, ANCOVA). For a, b, c, and d there were no baseline-by-group interactions (p > 0.05, ANCOVA). In total, WT male rats had lower startle scaling than WT female rats in 6/13 prepulse conditions, which is significant after multiple comparisons (p < 0.05, bootstrap ratio test).