Table 2.
Profile of Tg2576 and Tg5469 mice tested in the Morris water maze
| Mice excluded | Tg5469 | Tg2576 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4–5 Months | 6–11 Months | Very young | Young | Middle-aged | Old | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tg− | Tg+ | Tg− | Tg+ | Tg− | Tg+ | Tg− | Tg+ | Tg− | Tg+ | Tg− | Tg+ | |||||||||||||
| M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | |
| Visible platform failure | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 1 |
| Failure to orient to escape scoop | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Performance-incompetent mice were excluded from the analysis of age-dependent changes in learning and memory. They were defined as outliers in the cued task or animals failing to orient to the escape scoop. Performance-incompetent mice exhibited one or more of the following traits: cork-screw circling, floating, gross motor abnormalities, poor attention, and apparent visual impairments. Thigmotaxis was not prevalent in either Tg+ or Tg− populations and was not a consistent feature of the performance-incompetent phenotype.