Fig. 6.

Casp2 KO mice display elevated anxiety, enhanced fear memory and impaired cognitive flexibility. a, b Time spent and distance traveled in the center zone in open field tests. n = 18 WT mice and 21 KO mice. c Transition numbers between two chambers in light–dark exploration tests. n = 15 WT mice and 22 KO mice. d, e Percentage of time spent in freezing and distance traveled in contextual fear conditioning (FC) tests. n = 18 WT mice and 22 KO mice. f Schedule for training sessions and probe trials in water maze tests. g Latency for mice to locate the hidden platform during reversal spatial learning. n = 15 WT mice and 21 KO mice. h Percentage of time spent in the target quadrant during the 2nd probe trial and the remote probe trial. n = 15 WT mice and 20 KO mice. i Number of time when mice cross the location of the hidden platform during the 2nd probe trial and the remote probe trial. n = 15 WT mice and 20 KO mice. j Performance at the probe trials. Duration spent in crossing the location of the hidden platform was significantly shorter on day 27 than on day 17 in WT mice but not KO mice. Two-tailed Student’s t test for a–c. Two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test for d–j. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file