Fig. 5.

Effect of stroke on sensorimotor deficits in male (M) and female (F) MS P2X4R KO mice. (A) We did not observe a difference in ND Score between KO (n = 7) and WT (n = 10) male mice [F (1, 66) = 0.3 p = 0.5858; two-way ANOVA). Female KO (n = 8) versus WT (n = 9) mice recovered completely (based on ND score) within two weeks. A two-way ANOVA suggested a significant main effect of genotype in female [F (1, 78) = 47.76; p < 0.0001 WT vs KO]. (B) We observed no differences between genotype in total exploratory activity measured by the OFT after baseline correction in either male or female (C) Male KO mice showed as a swift reversal of anxiety-like behavior during the first week of stroke where a two-way ANOVA suggested a significant main effect of genotype (F (1, 66) = 14.48; p = 0.0003] and multiple comparison analysis at different time points suggested a significant difference at day 2 (^*p < 0.05; KO vs. WT); we observed no differences in females. (D) In the rotarod test, both male and female KO mice showed reduced impact of ischemic injury on motor balance and coordination during the acute recovery period (days 2–7 post stroke). In male mice a two-way ANOVA suggested a significant main effect of genotype [(F (1, 66) = 4.51; p = 0.034)]. However in female a two-way ANOVA did not show a significant main effect of genotype [F (1, 78) = 1.19 p = 0.2786). However, multiple time point comparison test suggested a significant effect at day 2 in both sexes (^*p < 0.05; KO vs. WT) A total of six mice died before the completion of experiments and were not included in the analysis.