Fig. 1

Greater microglia and macrophages are recruited to the CTE lesion blood vessels. The Iba1+ cell density specific to the CTE pathognomonic lesion was investigated to determine if tau specific glial recruitment occurs. a Representative image of Iba1+ cells found around control and CTE lesion blood vessels at the depth of the cortical sulcus in the DLFC. Left panel is a low power image of the depth of the cortical sulcus. Right panels are high power images of control and CTE lesion blood vessels. White arrows denote Iba1+ cells with processes contacting blood vessel. Asterisk denotes a blood vessel. Scale bar = 50 μm. b Quantitation of the average number of Iba1+ cells found around lesion and control vessels in low and high stage CTE. Each dot represents a single person. c Quantitation of the percentage of TMEM119+/Iba1+ and TMEM119−/Iba1+ cells found around the lesion and control vessels in control, mild, and severe CTE. Each dot represents the Iba1+/TMEM119+ (black circles) or Iba1+/TMEM119− (white squares) percentage from a single person. d Representative image of Iba1+/TMEM119+ and Iba1+/TMEM119− cells around lesion and control vessels. Increased macrophage recruitment was observed around lesion vessels. Asterisk denotes a blood vessel. Scale bar = 100 μm. Error bars are expressed as mean ± SEM. Statistics between mild and severe CTE generated with a two-way ANOVA. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01