Figure 6.

Schematic representation of behavioral tests measuring cognitive functions. (A): Morris water maze (MWM) test. Mice were tested for five (4-month-old) or four (8-month-old) consecutive days five times per day. Mice had to swim in a circular shaped pool and find an underwater platform using external spatial cues. (B): Social discrimination (SD) test consisted of four phases: open field (OF) test (e.g., habituation to the arena); habituation (to two small containers with grid), sociability, and social discrimination. For the sociability phase, under one of the containers one juvenile conspecific was placed (‘old’). For the next phase, an additional conspecific (‘new’) was placed under the other container. The position of the ‘old’ mouse was interchanged compared to the previous phase to avoid place preference. The test animal could freely behave for 5 min during each phase.