Fig. 1

Rotenone dose-dependently impairs the cognitive capacity of mice. a Experimental design. Mice were treated with different doses of rotenone. Three weeks after the initial injection, the Morris water maze (MWM) tests were performed, followed by novel objective recognition (NOR) and passive avoidance tests (PAT). After the behavior tests, mice were sacrificed and the brains were collected. For MWM test, different parameters, including escape latency (b), distance traveled (c), swimming speed (d), first platform crossing latency (e), number of platform crossings (f), and time percentage in target quadrant (g) were recorded. h For NOR test, recognition index was recorded. For PAT test, step-through latency (i) and error times in step-through (j) were recorded. n = 12; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01