Figure 7. Impaired performance in spatial memory tasks but not in tasks that did not depend upon the hippocampus following neuronal transduction with the AAV-NLGN2 vector.

A, Schematic of the apparatus used for testing recall of a novel object’s location. B, Mice transduced with the AAV-NLGN2 vector showed reduced discrimination between objects in the same vs. novel locations, compared to mice that were transduced with the AAV-mCherry vector (p=0.0358, Student’s t-test). C, Schematic of the apparatus for testing hippocampal-independent novel object recognition. D, Mice showed a similar preference for the new object, indicating that they were able to recall the previously explored object (p=0.9231, Student’s t-test). E, Schematic and timeline for the Morris water maze test of spatial memory. F, Mice transduced with the AAV-NLGN2 or AAV-mCherry vectors performed similarly during cued learning, but the mice transduced with the AAV-NLGN2 vector showed significant impairments in learning the spatial navigation task during days 3–5, after the platform cue was removed (p=0.043, Two-way repeated measures ANOVA). G, During probe trials, AAV-NLGN2 transduced mice showed a trend toward longer latencies to initially crossing the platform, compared to AAV-mCherry controls (p=0.0815, Student’s t-test). H, Mice transduced with the AAV-NLGN2 vector crossed the platform area significantly fewer times than mice transduced with the AAV-mCherry vector (p=0.0220, Student’s t-test).