Inhibitory avoidance test. When the animals had stepped with all four paws into the dark compartment, the door was closed and the baseline latency was recorded. The animals were given a single footshock (0.4 mA for 5 s) and then placed in their home cages. Retention was tested by placing the mice in the lighted compartment and measuring the latency to enter the dark compartment. (A) Step-through latencies to enter the dark compartment were measured 24 h after footshock. Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney U-test. The baseline latencies were not significantly different between genotypes (U = 102.5, P = 0.6926). In the 24-h retention trials, Cdkl2LacZ/LacZ mice exhibited reduced latencies, but the difference was not significant (U = 74.0, P = 0.0745). (B) The percentage of mice that did not enter the dark compartment (non-step-through) in 24-h retention trials was plotted. A chi-square test revealed that there was no significant difference in percent non-step-through between Cdkl2+/+mice and Cdkl2LacZ/LacZ mice (χ2 = 3.214, P = 0.0730). (C) Step-through latencies were measured 1 min, 24 h, and 48 h after footshock. The baseline latencies were not significantly different between genotypes (U = 258.5, P = 0.1670). In the retention trials, Cdkl2LacZ/LacZ mice exhibited significantly reduced latencies at 1 min and 24 h after footshock (1 min, U = 181.5, P = 0.0051, 24 h, U = 163.5, P = 0.0017 and 48 h, U = 218.5, P = 0.0341). (D) The percentage of non-step-through Cdkl2LacZ/LacZ mice was significantly different between 1 min and 24 h (1 min, χ2 = 11.258, P = 0.0008 and 24 h, χ2 = 12.554, P = 0.0004). In Cdkl2LacZ/LacZ mice, the percentage of non-step-through was significantly higher in the 48-h retention test compared to the 1-min retention test (χ2 = 6.571, P = 0.0104).