Fig. 2

Tau accumulation in vCA1 impairs social memory. a Expression of exogenous hTau in vCA1 by the AAV-hSyn-hTau-eGFP virus. Scale bar = 500 μm (vHP) or 50 μm (vCA1). b Overexpression of hTau in vCA1 had no effect on sociability. c Overexpression of hTau in vCA1 significantly disrupted social preference for novel conspecifics and decreased the discrimination score in social memory test. d Behavioural schematic of novel objective recognition tests. e There was no difference in the exploration time of object A between the two groups. f Both vCA1-hTau and control mice spent more time investigating object B in the test. No difference was detected in the discrimination score between control and vCA1-hTau mice. n = 8 per group. ^*P < 0.05; ^**P < 0.01, as determined by two-way ANOVA or two-tailed unpaired t test. The data are presented as the mean ± SEM. vHP ventral hippocampal, vCA1 ventral hippocampal CA1, hTau human tau