Analysis Tools
behavior/neurological
| N |
• homozygotes are viable, fertile and display no motor deficits or differences in pain sensitivity relative to wild-type mice
• no significant differences in spatial learning and memory are observed
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• homozygotes do not trim/barber their cagemates' whiskers or facial hair, unlike the majority of separately housed wild-type littermates which lack whiskers and have trimmed facial hair
• when housed separately as uniform genotypes, all post-weaning homozygotes between 2 and 9 months of age display full sets of whiskers and facial hair, relative to only 25%-50% of age-matched wild-type controls
• when housed with wild-type mice, homozygotes lose all whiskers and facial hair in 5 of 11 cages after mixed housing and regrow their whiskers within 2 weeks after returning to their home cage; in contrast, whiskerless wild-type mice consistently regrow full sets of whiskers and facial hair within 2-4 weeks after mixed genotype housing and have their whiskers trimmed within 2 weeks of return to their home cage
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• homozygotes display attenuated responses to acoustic startle stimuli relative to wild-type mice
• in contrast, tactile startle reponses remain unaffected
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• when housed separately as uniform genotypes, homozygotes display only 2 episodes of social behaviors whereas wild-type mice display 44 episodes including social grooming, mounting, tail pulling and sniffing; however, the frequency of self-grooming is not significantly different between wild-type and mutant mice (41 vs 36 episodes, respectively)
• when paired against each other in the social dominance tube test, homozygotes display a significantly lower percentage of wins than sex-matched wild-type mice (~30% vs 73%, respectively)
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• homozygotes sleep in scattered random patterns, unlike wild-type mice which generally sleep huddled together
• over a period of time, homozygotes tend to loosely huddle in various quandrants of the cage, whereas wild-type mice are more often observed huddled in the same quadrant
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• homozygotes build significantly shallower nests from nest building material relative to wild-type controls
• homozygotes tend to sleep on top of intact nestlet material whereas wild-type mice sleep in well-formed, fluffy nests
• however, abnormal nesting behavior is not due to differences in rectal temperatures
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nervous system
| N |
• homozygotes display normal brain histology and synaptic plasticity relative to wild-type mice
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• homozygotes display significantly lower levels of acoustic pre-pulse inhibition of both acoustic and tactile startle responses relative to wild-type mice
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• homozygotes display significantly lower levels of acoustic pre-pulse inhibition of both acoustic and tactile startle responses relative to wild-type mice
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hearing/vestibular/ear
| N |
• homozygotes exhibit normal stereocilia orientation at E18.5
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