Fig. 3.

Measurement of sociability after GCR exposure. Beginning at 45 days post exposure (GCR – 0, 15, 50 cGy) animals were tested for sociability deficits by the three-chamber social approach task. In the sociability part of this task the test animal is exposed to a mouse enclosed in a cage (non-aggressive, age-sex matched) or an empty cage for ten minutes. Sociability is measured by a preference to spend time with the mouse over the empty cage standardized to sex-matched 0 cGy group in the first 5 min of testing. (A) Male mice exposed to 50 cGy of GCR had significant impairments in sociability when compared to the 0 cGy group (F = 3.96; p = 0.02). (B) GCR exposure did not impact sociability in the female cohorts. One-way ANOVA did not reveal any significant differences between groups. Interaction times standardized to sex-matched 0 cGy group. (C) Males- Total interaction time with both the mouse and the empty cage. One-way ANOVA did not reveal any significant differences between groups. (D) Females- Total interaction time with both the mouse and the empty cage. One-way ANOVA did not reveal any significant differences between groups. Individual animal scores represented in dots, lines depict group mean and SEM. *p < 0.05. Males n = 13–16; Females n = 15–17.