Research Paper Volume 15, Issue 13 pp 6031—6072

Figure 4. Enrichment reduces anxiety-like behaviour in aged mice. (A) In the Elevated Plus Maze task in the Adult groups the distance travelled in the open area vs. that in the closed area (Distance travelled in the open arms/distance travelled in the closed arms ×100 expressed in %.) was not different between Genotype nor Housing condition (Genotype effect: F(1,56) = 0.12, p = 0.740; Housing effect: F(1,56) = 3.87, p = 0.054; Interaction Genotype x Housing: F(1,56) = 0.81, p = 0.370). (B) In the Aged groups the distance travelled in the open area vs. that in the closed area was greater in the enriched groups of both genotypes, indicating that enrichment effectively reduced anxiety-like behaviour (Housing: F(1,49) = 13.81, p = 0.001). Heatmaps below the graphs depict the arm occupancy for the mice of each group, with the horizontal arms being the open arms in all conditions. Individual data points are presented for each animal, with the bar graph representing the mean ± SEM of the data.