Fig. 4: Male and female mice employ similar behavioral strategies in response to shock and looming, but females spend more time freezing during looming.
A Percentage of total shock trials (10 per session) where each male (blue, square) or female (magenta, circle) mouse showed behavioral responses categorized as either freeze, flight, or neither during foot shock (100% flight response, SD = 0 for all behavior types. N = 5 females, 4 males). B Trial averaged latency to flight response following foot shock (two-tailed Mann–Whitney test, males vs females p = 0.0635, N = 5 females, 4 males). C Percentage of total looming trials (4 per session) where each male (blue, square) or female (magenta, circle) mouse showed behavioral responses categorized as either freeze, flight, or neither during the loom (two-way repeated-measures ANOVA main effect of behavior [F2,39 = 5.457, p = 0.0081], main effect of sex [F1,39 = 0.000, p > 0.9999], interaction of behavior x sex [F2,39 = 0.9989, p = 0.3775]. Tukey’s multiple comparisons test male vs female in behavior type neither: [p = 0.2586], freeze: [p = 0.4956], and flight: [p = 0.6491]. N = 7 females, 8 males). D Trial averaged time spent freezing in the 10-s window beginning at loom onset for animals that had a freeze response to looming (two-tailed Mann–Whitney test, males vs females p = 0.0079, N = 5 females, 5 males). All data represented as mean ± SEM.
