Figure 4

MRL/lpr ERαKO mice perform better than MRL/lpr WT in novel object recognition testing. (A) Relative discrimination (N-F/T) index. There was no significant difference between the discrimination ability of the MRL/lpr versus MRL/lpr ERαKO at 90 minutes or 24 hours. Neither group could effectively discriminate between the novel and familiar objects by this measure. A relative discrimination index of 0% (dotted line) indicates chance performance. (B) There was a significant difference in total exploration times between MRL/lpr and MRL/lpr ERαKO mice in both 90-minute and 24-hour trials. Post-hoc analysis revealed the total exploration time in both T1 and T2 of MRL/lpr ERαKO mice was higher than the total exploration time of MRL/lpr mice. (C) The latency ratio (time to first contact) was significantly decreased in the MRL/lpr ERαKO versus MRL/lpr mice at 90 minutes. There was also a trend towards improved performance in MRL/lpr ERαKO at 24 hours. (D) Contact ratio: MRL/lpr ERαKO mice made significantly more nose contacts with the novel object than the familiar object at 24 hours, and at 90 minutes there was a trend towards significance.