Fig. 3

PRL KO mice exhibited cognitive impairment and synaptic damage. (A) Experimental strategy used for generating PRL KO mice. (B) Quantitation of novel object recognition index in the novel objection recognition test. (C) Time spent in finding the hidden platform in Morris water maze (escape latency). (D) Percentage of time spent in the target quadrant in total time. (E) The number of platform entries in probe trial. (F) Representative confocal images of hippocampal immunostaining for neuronal marker NeuN (red) and pre-synaptic marker Vglut1 (green). Scale bar, 80 μm. (G) Relative NeuN density in hippocampus. (H) Relative level of Vglut1 intensity in hippocampus. (I) Representative confocal images depict synaptic staining for pre-synaptic marker Vglut1 (green) and post-synaptic marker PSD95 (red) in hippocampus of WT and PRL KO mice. Scale bar, 15 μm. (J) Relative level of hippocampal synaptic density. Data are presented as the mean ± SD. n = 11 mice/group (B–E) and n = 6 mice/group (F–I). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001; ns, not significant; two-way ANOVA (C) or unpaired two-tailed t test (B, D-J)