Fig. 7
Effect of pinealectomy on latency to start sniffing the food pellets A, latency to start eating in the open field B, fraction of rats not eating C, latency to start eating in the home cage D, measured in the novelty suppression feeding test, in 3-, 14- and 18-month-old rats. Two-way ANOVA revealed a main Age effect [F2,56 = 10. 673, p < 0.001]; [F2,56 = 22.025, p < 0.001], Surgery effect [F2,56 = 8.041, p = 0.007], [F2,56 = 5.291, p = 0.026] and Age x Surgery interaction [F2,56 = 4.239, p = 0.02], [F2,56 = 4.410, p = 0.018] for the latency to start sniffing the pellets and the latency to start eating in the open field, respectively. A significant difference was found using the log-rank test for the survival curves (Kaplan-Meier) (p = 0.0048). Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. ***p < 0.001, 18-month-old sham rats compared with 3-month-old sham rats; ***p < 0.001, 18-month-old sham rats compared with14-month-old sham rats; **p = 0.002, 18-month-old pin rats compared with matched sham rats (A); ***p < 0.001, 3 month-old pin rats compared with matched sham rats (C).