Table 1.

Maternal viral infection decreases exploratory behavior in adult offspring

Open field test	Time in center region of field	Number of times entering center	Number of times rearing
Mice born to sham infected mothers	108.5  ± 30.0	18.0  ± 5.1	31.8  ± 7.5
Mice born to infected mothers	14.5  ± 6.6	3.4  ± 1.5	7.7  ± 1.6
	p < 0.0005	p < 0.0016	p < 0.001

Novel object test	Time to first contact with object	Number of contacts with object
Mice born to sham infected mothers	169  ± 65	18.8  ± 4.1
Mice born to infected mothers	332  ± 47	6.3  ± 1.8
	p < 0.05	p < 0.003

Fifteen control (7 males) and 23 experimental (12 males) BALB/c mice were tested sequentially in the open field and novel object tests, each for 10 min. Their time, in seconds, for each measure of behavior was quantified from videotapes viewed by an observer blind to the history of the mice. Data are given as mean ± SEM. A two-tailedt test was used to assess the significance of the differences between the two groups in each test.