Fig. 3

The elevated zero/circular maze (A–C) and open field tests (D–F). Representative heatmaps from each group is shown (A). Control and soman + 1400W groups significantly spent more time in closed quadrants (B, C). Soman exposed 1400W treated group spent significantly more time at the center (D) or less time in the periphery (E) in an open field (illustrated in the schematic diagram) than the vehicle 1400W group. Soman animals irrespective of treatment travelled more distances in the open field versus the controls (F). Contextual fear conditioning test (G–I). During habituation before conditioning (G) and probing (H), soman-exposed groups froze longer than the controls. There were no significant differences in freezing time during the inter-trial intervals (ITI) between any groups during the conditioning phase (G). Differences in freezing time emerged during the ITI during probing (H). Significant differences in percent freezing time increase were observed in soman-exposed animals (I). The percent freezing time of all inter-tone intervals, except habituation, was compared between groups in I. B Paired t-test (Control, VEH 1400W) and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test (Soman VEH, Soman 1400W). C–F, I Two-way ANOVA (Tukey’s multiple comparisons test), n = 11–15/sex; G, H two-way repeated measures ANOVA (Tukey’s multiple comparisons test), n = 24–27 for mixed-sex cohort, n = 11–15/sex. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 vs respective control; ^#p < 0.05 vs soman + vehicle