Analysis of hippocampal-dependent learning and memory behaviour in mice lacking Nfix from adult neural stem cells

Oressia Zalucki, Danyon Harkins, Lachlan Harris, Thomas H. J. Burne, Richard M. Gronostajski, Michael Piper

The active place avoidance task (APA) is a behavioural task used to assess learning and memory in rodents. This task relies on the hippocampus, a region of the cerebral cortex capable of generating new neurons from neural stem cells. In this study, to gain further insight into the behavioural phenotype of mice deficient in the transcription factor Nfix, a gene expressed by adult neural stem cells, we examined learning and memory parameters from the APA task that were not published in our original investigation. We analysed time to first and second shock, maximum path and time of shock avoidance, number of entries into the shock zone and time spent in the shock zone. We also assessed performance in the APA task based on sex. We found mice deficient in Nfix displayed decreased latency to second shock compared to the control mice. Nfix deficient mice entered the shock zone more frequently and also spent more time in the shock zone. Our data provides further insights into the memory deficits evident in Nfix mutant mice, indicating these mice have a memory retrieval problem and may employ a different navigation strategy in the APA task.