Table 2.
Summary of the effects of the prenatal and postnatal maternal manipulations on the offspring’s performance in the elevated plus maze and open field exploration tests in peri-adolescence
| Experiment | Experimental groups (prenatal treatment–postnatal rearing) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAL-SAL | SAL-POL | POL-SAL | POL-POL | |
| Elevated plus maze | ||||
| Total distance moved (m) | 14.10 ± 2.31 | 15.84 ± 2.04 | 18.82 ± 3.83 | 18.27 ± 4.99 |
| Distance moved (m) in open arms | 1.17 ± 0.24 | 1.31 ± 0.18 | 1.55 ± 0.31 | 1.56 ± 0.49 |
| Percent open arm entries | 29.61 ± 3.82 | 26.34 ± 1.97 | 28.24 ± 3.44 | 24.34 ± 3.60 |
| Percent time spent in open arms | 13.17 ± 2.63 | 9.30 ± 1.22 | 10.68 ± 2.18 | 11.72 ± 2.09 |
| Open field | ||||
| Total distance moved (m) | 111.09 ± 8.92 | 119.67 ± 12.77 | 117.77 ± 10.38 | 107.39 ± 8.58 |
| Distance moved (m) in center zone | 7.99 ± 0.88 | 9.24 ± 1.59 | 9.16 ± 0.96 | 8.68 ± 1.71 |
| Time in center zone (s) | 170.96 ± 21.45 | 200.04 ± 38.23 | 195.70 ± 20.36 | 195.34 ± 49.58 |
| Center zone entries | 88 ± 10 | 106 ± 19 | 106 ± 11 | 99 ± 20 |
SAL-SAL, offspring subjected to prenatal vehicle exposure and raised by vehicle-treated surrogate mothers; SAL-POL, offspring subjected to prenatal vehicle exposure and raised by PolyI:C-treated surrogate mothers; POL-SAL, offspring subjected to prenatal PolyI:C exposure and raised by vehicle-treated surrogate mothers; POL-POL, offspring subjected to prenatal PolyI:C exposure and raised by PolyI:C-treated surrogate mothers. No significant group differences were detected in any of the dependent measures. All values are means±SEM