Fig. 2

Assessment of neurobehavioral change at 5 months Post‐GW toxic exposure and for both Sexes. a Learning deficits were evaluated during the 6 days of acquisition. Since no sex interactions were observed for the outcome reported from the Barnes maze test, samples were consolidated across sexes for all following experiments (c, f, i). During the acquisition testing, both injured groups spent more time on the table before escaping into the target hole compared with their respective controls (c). The r-mTBI/GW group spent the longest time on the platform (c, Wilcoxon signed rank test, P < 0.0001) and traveled the longest distance (f, P < 0.0001; repeated‐measures ANOVA). The r-mTBI/GW group was also found to perform worse than the r-mTBI/V group on day 4,5 and 6 for escaping the maze and travelled greater distance on the maze for the 6 days of acquisition (c, Wilcoxon signed rank test, P < 0.01; f, P < 0.0001; repeated‐measures ANOVA). The performance of the Sham/GW was better than both r-mTBI groups for the time to escape the maze and but worse than the Sham/V on day 4, 5 and 6 (c, Wilcoxon signed rank test, P < 0.01). The Sham/GW traveled the shortest distance of all groups (f, P < 0.01; repeated‐measures ANOVA). Evaluation of spatial memory retention (probe) using the Barnes maze at 5 months post GW exposure pooling Male and Female mice (g–l). Both r-mTBI groups had a greater latency to reach the target zone than the Sham/V or Sham/GW (i, P < 0.006; Two-way ANOVA, Tukey's multiple comparisons test). The Sham/GW group also had a longer latency to reach the target hole; Sham/GW vs. Sham/V P < 0.0377 (i). No difference was observed between the Sham/GW and the r-mTBI/V or between the r-mTBI/V and r-mTBI/GW. Data are presented as mean ± SEM, Two‐way analysis of variance with Tukey's post hoc test; P > 0.05; each symbol represents 1 mouse N = 10/12 per group per Sex, solid symbol: male; empty symbol: female). Quantification of search strategy utilization in the probe trial of the Barnes Maze (j–l). There was a narrowly significant overall effect of GW treatment and mTBI on the raw counts of search strategy utilization in the probe trial (P = 0.05; PERMANOVA, 199 permutations). Pair-wise comparisons with Holm-Bonferroni corrections for multiple comparisons showed that when the sexes were combined, r-mTBI/GW mice (l) had a different search strategy utilization pattern than Sham/V mice (P < 0.04; PERMANOVA, 199 permutations)