Figure 1.

Study design. (A) Outbred 7-week-old CD1 mice were acclimated for this study with the introduction of a custom vitamin B deficient chow containing 1% succinylsulfathiazole and supplemented with B6, B9, B12 for 5 weeks prior to the birth of their pups. Mothers and pups were kept on this diet during weaning. After weaning (3 weeks post birth), the pups of half of the litters remained on the parental diet, and the pups of the other half of the litters were put on a folate-deficient diet. Behavioral tests were administered 5 and 17 months after birth, and tissues were collected following the completion of behavioral tests at each time point (about 1 month after their initiation). Results from littermates were averaged and considered to be N =1. (B) Mice were weighed throughout the course of the study to determine if diet had any effect on overall size of the mouse (N ≥ 3 for all ages and diets). Although all mice gained weight with age, there was no statistical difference between the various dietary conditions at any single time point (one-tailed homoscedastic student t-test: 6 months FA vs. DEF P = 0.29, 12 months FA vs. DEF P = 0.14, 18 months FA vs. DEF P = 0.36).