Fig. 11

Depletion of microglia eliminated locomotor recovery of MCAO/r injury mice after iTBS treatment. A Mice received the CSF1R inhibitor PLX3397 for 3 weeks prior to induction of MCAO/r and the diet was maintained until the end of 1-week iTBS treatment. Representative bands of the western blot (B) and quantitative analysis of Iba1 (D), GFAP (E), NeuN (F). Immunofluorescence staining (C) and quantitative analysis of Iba1 positive cells counts (D), GFAP intensity (H), and NeuN intensity (I). Scale bar = 60 μm. Values are expressed as the mean ± SEM of the mean (n = 4). Non-significant (ns), *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 as determined by unpaired Student’s t test. 21-day PLX3397 treatment had also no significant impact on distance move (J) in open filed test, duration (K), cadence (L), body speed (M), swing speed (N) in CatWalk gait analysis. (O) Survival curve among PLX3397 + Sham, PLX3397 + MCAO/r and PLX3397 + MCAO/r + iTBS groups during 8-day observation period. Non-significant (ns), *P < 0.05 as determined by Log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test. No statistically significant differences in body speed (P), swing speed (Q), duration (R), average speed (S), cadence (T), latency to fall (U), distance moved (V) and mean velocity (W) were observed between PLX3397 + MCAO/r and PLX3397 + MCAO/r + iTBS groups at the end of experiment. Values are expressed as the mean ± SEM of the mean (n = 6). Non-significant (ns), *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 as determined by one-way ANOVA (Tukey’s multiple comparison test). RF right forelimb, RH right hindlimb, LF left forelimb, LH left hindlimb