Fig. 5

Sex- and strain-specific increases in the average intensity of GFAP immunoreactivity and numbers of GFAP immunopositive cells. GFAP immunoreactivity was assessed at 2 and 5 days post-exposure. Representative photomicrographs of GFAP immunoreactivity and DAPI labeling in the cortex (a) of female rats and the hippocampus (b) of male BN and female Lewis rats; Sal=saline, Adj=adjuvant-only, Imm=immune challenge. c Geometric mean ratio (GMR) of GFAP average intensity in response to immune challenge, adjuvant-only, or saline control conditions in the hippocampus versus the cortex within each strain; collapsed between sex and day of collection (N = 42 per strain; BN(19Imm, 19Adj, 4Sal); Lewis(16Imm(8M/8F), 17Adj(9M/8M), and 9Sal(5M/4F)). GMR plots of GFAP average intensity in BN (d) and Lewis (e) rats collapsed between day and region, as well as GFAP-positive cell counts in Lewis (f) and BN (g) strains of each treatment relative to saline control collapsed between the day of collection in (f). Error bars represent 95% CI; a CI not including the normalization line (line at 1) indicates a significant difference between brain regions (c) or the treatment and saline controls (d–g) at p ≤ 0.05