Autism-Like Behaviours and Memory Deficits Result from a Western Diet in Mice

Figure 3

The high-cholesterol diet potentiates dominant-like behaviour and suppresses sociability in a food competition test. In comparison to the control group, mice housed on the high-cholesterol diet showed (a) a significant decrease in the latency to crawl-over behaviour and (b) a significant increase in a number of crawl-overs, as well as (c) prolonged total duration of crawl-over behaviour ( versus that in the control group; Mann-Whitney test). In comparison to the control group, mice exposed to the cholesterol-enriched diet had (d) no significant changes in the latency to body-body contacts and had (e) a significant increase in a number of body-body contacts ( versus that in the control group; Mann-Whitney test) and (f) a significant decrease in the duration of body-body contacts ( versus that in the control group; Mann-Whitney test). No significant group differences were observed between the groups in the parameters of nose-anal contacts: (g) the number of nose-anal contacts, (h) latency to nose-anal contacts, and (i) total duration of nose-anal contacts ( versus that in the control group; Mann-Whitney test). There were no significant group differences in the parameters of nose-nose contacts: (j) latency of nose-nose contacts, (k) number of nose-nose contacts, and (l) total duration of nose-nose contacts ( versus that in the control group; Mann-Whitney test). Control—standard diet, WD—high-cholesterol diet. Data are shown as mean ± SEMs.