Dietary Mercury Exposure Resulted in Behavioral Differences in Mice Contaminated with Fish-Associated Methylmercury Compared to Methylmercury Chloride Added to Diet

Table 4

Mice behavior in an open field maze^a.

	Control		MeHg^b		Fish^c
	28th day	56th day	28th day	56th day	28th day	56th day
Squares crossed	93 ± 7	86 ± 4	86 ± 6	83 ± 5	78 ± 6	84 ± 5
Rearing	23 ± 2	26 ± 2	21 ± 2	28 ± 3	22 ± 3	24 ± 2
Grooming	1.7 ± 0.3	1.25 ± 0.16	1.5 ± 0.2	1.38 ± 0.18	1.9 ± 0.3	^°,§0.75 ± 0.16
Fecal pellets	1.4 ± 0.8	3.8 ± 1.2	3.7 ± 1.8	1.7 ± 0.6	3.9 ± 1.1	2.3 ± 0.9
Time spent in center (s)	5.3 ± 1.0	3.6 ± 0.4	3.8 ± 0.5	4.7 ± 1.2	3.7 ± 0.6	^°°,§10.0 ± 1.5

^aMean ± SEM, n = 8.
^bMeHg: mice were fed a MeHg-containing diet.
^cFish: mice were fed a 4.9% aimara flesh-containing diet.
Values appearing in bold characters highlight those significantly different from the control values.
Circles indicate significant differences in behavioral parameters for mice fed the fish-containing diet compared to those fed the control diet, as determined with the Students test, ^°P < 0.05, and ^°°P < 0.01.
The symbol ^§ indicates significant differences in behavioral parameters for mice fed the fish-containing diet compared to those fed the MeHg-containing diet, as determined with the Students test, ^§P < 0.05.