Fig. 7

Systemic delivery of ISP increases motor axonal sprouting after ICH. a Schematic diagram of CST tracing. The rAAV2/9–CaMKIIa–mCherry vector was injected into the primary motor cortex (M1) at week 6 post-ICH in the vehicle and ISP groups. Two weeks after injection, mice were killed and the brain and spinal cord tissue were harvested. Most fibers from M1 form two tracts: the corticospinal tract (CST), which connects to the spinal cord, and the corticobulbar tract, which connects to the brainstem. The corticobulbar tract and the corticospinal tract project into facial nuclei in the pons and cervical spinal cord of both sides, which is represented in red. b Representative images of AAV + fibers (red). Axons crossing the midline, seen in the white boxed area, are within the facial nuclei and cervical spinal cord. The boxed areas in the middle column are enlarged in the right column. Scale bar, 100 µm. c, d Quantification of axons crossed midline per section from 3 to 5 sections per mice at week 8 post-ICH. n = 3 per group. Data were analyzed by unpaired Student t test, and expressed as mean ± SD. *p < 0.05