Fig. 4

Selective deficits in associative fear memory and operant conditioning in Stau2^KD rats. a–c Trace fear conditioning. Schematic representation of the training test is indicated (a; top). Acquisition of conditioned fear shown as time spent freezing plotted over tone-shock pairings (a; bottom), recall of contextual fear displayed as freezing response toward the context in which fear conditioning took place (b) and freezing response toward the presented tone cue (c) in Tx-treated CaMKIIα-CreERT2 and Stau2^KD animals (n = 7 animals/group). d Inhibitory avoidance task. Latency to step down the platform with all four paws was recorded for Stau2^KD (black; n = 10) and CaMKIIα-CreERT2 (gray; n = 11) rats both in the original conditioning chamber A and the testing chamber B. e Illustration of the light/dark discrimination task, where lever presses during light periods were rewarded, while lever presses in the dark were not rewarded and led to a 10-s delay for the reappearance of the light. f Stau2^KD animals displayed significant deficits to newly introduced association of the light cue with lever presses being rewarded, as expressed by the change in the light/dark coefficient over training days. Positive values indicate a preference of rewarded lever presses in the light period over non-rewarded lever presses in the dark period (n = 10 animals/group). g Schematic representation of the dual signal recognition task, where the lever (and reward) was removed in 50% of the illuminated periods. h, i Adaptation of the CaMKIIα-CreERT2 controls and Stau2^KD rats to the dual signal recognition task (h) and latency to approach the lever during light periods (i). j Slopes of fEPSPs evoked at the PP-CA3 (top) and PP-CA1 (bottom) synapses, recorded when the CaMKIIα-CreERT2 controls and Stau2^KD rats were crossing the photoelectric beam 1 (n = 10 animals/group). Stars represent p values between genotypes obtained by t-tests (c, d) or two-way ANOVA of repeated measures and all pairwise multiple comparison procedures (Holm–Sidak method; f, h–j). * p < 0.05