Figure 4. N296H-MAPT transgenic mice display a hyperactivity phenotype.

(a) Accelerating rotarod performance at 3 m and 11–12 m. Animals were tested on a rotarod accelerating from 4–40 rpm over a 5 min period with three trials per day and the average latency to fall off was recorded. No significant differences between genotypes were observed at either tested time points in pairwise post-hoc comparisons despite a main effect of genotype. (b) Stride length (average distance between middle toe of a step and heel of the next step) at 3 m and 19–21 m of age. No differences in stride length between genotypes were observed in young (3 months) or old (19–21 months) mice. (c) Locomotor activity in an unfamiliar environment. Tau KO and N51 mutant tau expressing animals showed increased locomotor activity in 5 month old animals compared to H1 wild-type expressing animals. Results for all tests represent mean ± SEM for (a,b) N = 10–12, (c) N = 24–31, (d) N = 5–6 animals per genotype. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. One-way (c) or two-way ANOVA (a,b,d) followed by Bonferroni post-hoc analysis.