Fig. 8

Behavioral findings of sex-specific main effects for T. gondii or CCI. T. gondii female mice travelled less in the open field compared to vehicle females (A). Vehicle + CCI and T. gondii + Sham females had less of a preference for the novel arm in the Y-maze compared to Vehicle + Sham females (B). Stage 2 of the 3-chamber social test (3CT) revealed a preference for the ‘stimulus 1’ chamber in both sexes, and CCI mice spent more time in the side chambers (C). During stage 3 of the 3CT, neither male nor female mice had a preference for the unfamiliar ‘stimulus 2’ mouse, while CCI mice again spent more time in the side chambers (D). In the water maze, CCI males took longer on average to find the visible platform (E), and female CCI mice took longer on day 5 of the task to locate the hidden platform (F). On the probe test, CCI females made fewer crosses through the target platform location compared to sham-injured females (G). T. gondii females travelled less in the probe test compared to Vehicle mice (H). Data displayed as mean ± SD when analyzed with 2-Way ANOVA or as median with interquartile range when analyzed with Kruskal–Wallis. *p < 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01. ***p ≤ 0.001. n = 11–12/group/sex