Fig. 1

Study overview and results of APA test and retest. Overview of the study with timeline (a). In the active place avoidance test (APA) mice must use spatial cues to avoid a shock zone (indicated as a red triangle) (b). APP23 mice had impaired performance in the APA test in terms of number of shocks received (c), and time to first entry to the shock zone (d) as determined by a two-way ANOVA. Although the APP23 mice did not show significant impairment in the measure number of entries (e) or maximum time avoidance (of the shock zone) (f), they were impaired on the measures time to second entry (g) and proportion of time spent in the opposite quadrant to the shock zone (h). The mice were then assigned to treatment groups based on matching performance on day 5 of the APA test (i). The APA retest was performed after four once-per-week treatments with changes to room cues, shock zone location, and the direction of rotation (j). In the post-treatment APA retest an effect of SUS + Adu treatment on number of shocks compared to sham-treated mice was revealed (k), whereas treatment with SUS improved time to first entry (l). SUS + Adu improved the performance of the mice on the measures number of entries (m), and maximum time avoidance (n). Time to second entry was improved by SUS (o), while SUS + Adu improved the proportion of time spent in the opposite quadrant to the shock zone (p). Data are represented as mean ± SEM. Statistical differences: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001, $ = simple effect comparing wild-type vs sham p < 0.05, # = simple effect comparing SUS vs sham p < 0.05, & = simple effect comparing SUS + Adu vs sham p < 0.05. Sham N = 10, Adu N = 11, SUS N = 11, SUS + Adu N = 10, WT N = 12. Data were analyzed with a two-way ANOVA and follow-up Holm-Sidak tests for simple effects