Fig. 4

Antibiotic treatment prevents alcohol-induced morphological changes in cortical and hippocampal microglia. a Microglia were immunohistochemically stained for IBA1 and visualized at × 40 magnification in the cortex of pair-fed (PF) or alcohol-fed (EtOH) mice. Representative microglia from the insets are shown in b. c–d For both the cortex and hippocampus, microglial soma area was measured by tracing the perimeter of the cell body and calculating the area. e–f Cell process length was measured in cortical and hippocampal microglia by summing the length of all extensions off of the soma to their distal termination and normalized to the respective PF controls. IBA1-positive staining microglia were quantified in the cortex (g) and hippocampus (h). Data are mean ± SEM, n = 3 mice/group and 5–9 images/region. *p < 0.05