Figure 3.

Barnes maze performance as a measure of learning and memory. P6‐ethanol exposed mice and saline mice were trained on the Barnes maze at 1 month of age. Mice learned the location of the target hole over the course of multiple sessions (trials 1–7). At 4M, mice were tested again in the long‐term (LT) session for their ability to recall the location of the target hole several months after the training. (a) There was no difference in latency to find the target between ethanol and saline‐injected mice (ethanol n = 8, saline n = 6) over the course of the seven trial days or on the LT trial (b) There was no difference in the distance between the first hole and the target during training between ethanol and saline‐injected mice during training or on the LT trial. (c) There was no difference in the number of wrong holes explored before the target during training days, but ethanol‐injected mice made significantly more errors on the LT trial before finding the target hole (by t test, p = .0311). (d) The Barnes maze was divided into four quadrants for analysis based on the target location. An increase in the exploration of the opposite quadrant from the target indicates a spatial learning deficit (Attar et al., 2013). (e) Ethanol‐injected mice explored the quadrant opposite from their target quadrant more frequently than saline‐injected mice on the LT trial (by t test, p = .032). Error bars indicate SEM; * indicates significance at P < 0.05