Fig. 5.

Depression-like behaviors assessed by the sucrose preference test, the tail suspension test and the forced swim test. A Mice treated with intranasal HDM exhibited decreased sucrose preference compared with PBS control mice. *p < 0.05, Mann–Whitney. B After 6 weeks of intranasal PBS (control) or HDM administration, mice underwent the tail suspension test (TST) and the duration of no movement (immobility time) was recorded. The HDM group showed increased immobility time during the last 3 min, indicating increased depressive-like behavior (*p < 0.05, Mann–Whitney). C In the forced swim test (FST), no significant difference was observed between mice in the PBS control versus HDM sensitization group