Fig 3.

Isoflurane (Iso)-induced associative recognition memory impairment is dependent on precise age of postnatal exposure. (a) All three groups spent more time investigating a novel object over a familiar object in the novel object recognition task, left (control P=0.0005, P4 Iso P=0.0054, P7 Iso P=0.0348; ratio paired t-test). Performance on recognition tasks was further assessed by the discrimination index (DI), right (control P=0.003, P4 Iso P=0.0204; one sample t-test against hypothetical mean=0). (b) The P4 Iso group was impaired in the object place recognition task, which requires subjects to identify an object in a previously seen location (familiar vs novel: control P=0.0014, P4 Iso P=0.8763, P7 Iso P=0.0033; ratio paired t-test; DI: control P<0.0001, P4 Iso P=0.9783, P7 Iso P=0.0031; one sample t-test against hypothetical mean=0). (c) The P4 Iso and P7 Iso groups were impaired in the object context recognition task, which tests subjects’ ability to recognise an object and its associated context in which it was previously seen (familiar vs novel: control P=0.0475, P4 Iso P=0.8006, P7 Iso P=0.0753; ratio paired t-test; DI: control P<0.04, P4 Iso P=0.7961, P7 Iso P=0.0576; one sample t-test against hypothetical mean=0). (d) The P4 Iso group was impaired in social recognition memory and did not spend more time on average investigating a novel juvenile rat over a previously seen juvenile (familiar vs novel: control P=0.0113, P4 Iso P=0.1252, P7 Iso P=0.0478; ratio paired t-test; DI: control P=0.0278, P4 Iso P=0.2040, P7 Iso P=0.0164; one sample t-test against hypothetical mean=0). All graphs are shown with mean and standard deviation. *P<0.05,† P<0.01, ‡ P<0.001, ns = not significant.