Fig. 1

Immunohistochemical and behavioural profiling of 12- to 15-month-old rTg4510 mice. Pathology: Bi-transgenic rTg4510 (CC) mice displayed severe hippocampal and cortical tau burden and atrophy (a), as measured by PG-5-positive staining and area, respectively (b). Behaviour: CC mice displayed profound hyperactive behaviour in the open-field locomotor activity task (c), whereas motor co-ordination remains intact as measured in the Rotarod task (d). CC mice were impaired in the acquisition and 24-h probe testing in the swim escape Y-maze spatial reference memory task (e). Acquisition of a Y-maze non-spatial, visual cue discrimination learning task was no different than in wild-type/non-transgenic rTg4510 (WW) controls (f). No deficit was observed in the Y-maze continuous alternation task (g), while CC mice were impaired in both the spatial novelty preference (h) and discrete-trial rewarded alternation (i). Scale bar = 500 μm. All data are presented as mean ± SEM, dotted lines denote chance level. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, versus WW controls