Fig. 6

Overview of ES and APP/PS1-induced effects on hippocampal astrocytic GFAP. Stress exposure early in life from postnatal days 2–9 is associated with an increase of GFAP in specific hippocampal subregions at P9. No effects are observed at 4 months. At 10 months, GFAP coverage is reduced in wildtype mice. In APP/PS1 mice, no effects are observed at 4 months (early pathological stage) of either genotype or ES exposure. At 10 months (advanced pathological stage), we observe genotype-induced reduction in global and increase in localized GFAP clustering, presumably due to Aβ accumulation. Notably, amyloid pathology is modulated by ES [14], decreasing cell-associated amyloid at 4 months, and increasing amyloid load at 10 months. While ES did not affect the absolute measures of GFAP, this suggests altered astrocytic response to amyloid pathology after ES