Figure. 7. MIA causes elevated grooming and reduced rearing in a BIR-dependent manner in male, but not female, C57BL/6 adult offspring from Taconic.

Young adult male (P60-P80) MIA offspring from TAC dams treated with a 30 mg/kg dose of poly(I:C) were assessed for (A) grooming, (B) rearing, and (C) freezing behaviors. Similar to male mice from CR (Figure 3), MIA TAC male offspring showed elevated grooming in low and medium BIR groups, but not the high BIR group (F_3,24 = 8.781, low: P < 0.001; medium: P = 0.0393, high: P = 0.9520). However, the effect size for time spent self-grooming in MIA offspring from low BIR dams was larger when animals were sourced from TAC compared to CR (source x BIR: F_3,51 = 3.81, P < 0.05; post hoc TAC low > CR low; P < 0.01). (B) Rearing was decreased in all BIR MIA groups in TAC mice (F_3,24 = 8.764, low: P = 0.0016; medium: P = 0.0370; high: P = 0.0012), in contrast to the more complex effects of MIA on rearing in CR mice shown in Figure 3. (C) MIA did not alter freezing in male offspring. In contrast to the males, the female offspring exhibited no behavioral changes in (D) grooming, (E) rearing, or (F) freezing. 2-6 pups per litter were assessed for behaviors and their responses were averaged into a single value per litter. It is important to note that the variability in control offspring likely contributes to the lack of significant effects in some of these behaviors. Bars represent mean of litter values for 3-12 litters, as indicated ± SEM, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Significance was determined using a nested 1-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test for multiple comparisons.