Fig. 1: Main behavioral performance of MIA-exposed and control offspring.

Pregnant C57BL6/N mice were exposed to poly(I:C) (POL) or control (CON) treatment on gestation day 12. At adult age (12 weeks onwards), the resulting offspring were subjected to a behavioral testing battery assessing basal locomotor activity in the open field test, working memory in a Y-maze spontaneous alternation test, sociability in a social interaction test (social preference index values >0 represent a preference toward an unfamiliar mouse, whereas values <0 represent a preference towards an inanimate dummy object), and prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle reflex. a Litter-based analyses of the main behavioral data, in which the number of litters (N = 12 per treatment group) was considered as the  experimental unit. The scatter plots show the distance moved (m) in the open field test, spontaneous alternation (%) in the Y-maze working memory test (t₍₂₂₎ = 3.38, **p < 0.01), social preference index in the social interaction test (t₍₂₂₎ = 5.98, ***p < 0.001), and the mean % PPI in the PPI test of the acoustic startle reflex (t₍₂₂₎ = 3.75, **p < 0.01). b The violin plots with overlaid data points show the performance of individual CON (n = 77, from N = 12 litters) and POL (n = 81, from N = 12 litters) offspring in the four behavioral tests. Compared to the CON group, the POL group shows significantly larger dispersion of data relating to social approach behavior (F_(80,76) = 2.29, ⁺⁺⁺p < 0.001) and mean %PPI (F_(80,76) = 1.88, ⁺⁺p < 0.01), based on F-tests to compare variances.