Fig. 6: Early life oxytocin treatment rescues social discrimination deficit in adult Fmr1 KO mice. | Molecular Psychiatry

Fig. 6: Early life oxytocin treatment rescues social discrimination deficit in adult Fmr1 KO mice.

From: A short period of early life oxytocin treatment rescues social behavior dysfunction via suppression of hippocampal hyperactivity in male mice

Fig. 6: Early life oxytocin treatment rescues social discrimination deficit in adult Fmr1 KO mice.The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

a, b Sociability test. Time spent (a, Wild-type: n = 8 mice, P = 0.0285, paired t-test; Fmr1 KO: n = 10 mice, P = 0.0020, Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test) and preference (b, P = 0.9484, unpaired t-test) for sniffing the mouse chamber or the empty chamber. c–e Social preference test. c Representative heatmaps. d, e Social preference in the three-chamber test showing time spent (d, wild-type: n = 8 mice, P = 0.0078, Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test; Fmr1 KO: n = 10 mice, P = 0.6089, paired t-test) and preference (e, P = 0.0044, Mann–Whitney U test.) for interacting with a stranger mouse versus a familiar mouse. f, g c-Fos analysis for wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice. f Example images of c-Fos-positive neurons in the dCA3. Scale bar, 50 μm. g Number of c-Fos-positive neurons for wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice (Each group, n = 4 mice, P = 0.0286, Mann–Whitney test). h Left, diagram shows the peptide ELISA assay. Right, OXT and AVP peptide levels in the hippocampus for wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice. Wild-type: n = 16 mice; Fmr1 KO: n = 18 mice. OXT: P = 0.0377; AVP: P = 0.1946; unpaired t-test. i Oxytocin mRNA level in the hypothalamus in wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice (wild-type: n = 8 mice; Fmr1 KO: n = 15 mice; P = 0.0130; Mann–Whitney U test). j Schematic shows intranasal OXT treatment. k Sociability test. Vehicle: n = 6 mice, P = 0.0313; OXT: n = 7 mice, P = 0.0156; Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. i–n Social preference test. i Representative heatmaps. Time spent (m, Vehicle: P = 0.6784, OXT: P = 0.0049; paired t-test) and preference (n, P = 0.0093, unpaired t-test) for interacting with a stranger mouse versus a familiar mouse. o Representative spontaneous mEPSC recordings in dCA3 cells from vehicle (upper) and OXT (lower) for Fmr1 KO mice. p, q mEPSC frequencies (p, P = 0.0006, unpaired t-test) and mEPSC amplitudes (q, P = 0.8666, Mann–Whitney U test) in dCA3 (vehicle, n = 7 neurons from 3 mice; OXT, n = 12 neurons from 3 mice). *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; NS, not significant. Data presented as mean ± SEM.

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