Table 3.
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 adulthood
| Experiment | Experimental groups (prenatal treatment–postnatal rearing) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAL-SAL | SAL-POL | POL-SAL | POL-POL | |
| Elevated plus maze | ||||
| Total distance moved (m) | 9.56 ± 0.56 | 10.48 ± 0.57 | 11.34 ± 0.64 | 10.85 ± 0.51 |
| Distance moved (m) in open arms | 1.57 ± 0.46 | 1.25 ± 0.22 | 1.40 ± 0.37 | 1.16 ± 0.29 |
| Percent open arm entries | 32.63 ± 4.53 | 31.39 ± 3.96 | 28.83 ± 3.35 | 31.57 ± 3.86 |
| Percent time spent in open arms | 27.79 ± 5.10 | 20.76 ± 3.55 | 18.78 ± 3.02 | 17.52 ± 2.98 |
| Open field | ||||
| Total distance moved (m) | 123.71 ± 3.95 | 119.25 ± 8.05 | 112.55 ± 12.42 | 135.54 ± 9.86 |
| Distance moved (m) in center zone | 7.27 ± 0.78 | 7.56 ± 1.25 | 8.50 ± 2.18 | 8.62 ± 1.48 |
| Time in center zone (s) | 137.72 ± 21.29 | 116.92 ± 19.88 | 163.40 ± 57.76 | 175.94 ± 32.36 |
| Center zone entries | 68 ± 7 | 67 ± 11 | 77 ± 19 | 84 ± 13 |
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