Fig. 5.

Derailing of parvalbumin immunoreactivity following SARS-CoV-2 infection. (a) Representative staining of Parvalbumin+ cells in the hamster cortex. Scale bar left 200 μm, right 50 μm. The magma lookup table was used for the histological images to increase the visibility of instensity differences. (b) Heatmaps of mean normalized Parvalbumin+ cell densities per brain region in PBS (=100%) and female and male animals at 21 dpi (region abbreviations: BLA: basolateral amygdala, CA1: hippocampus CA1 region, Cg: cingulate cortex, Cpu: caudate putamen, DG: hippocampus dentate gyrus, Hilus: hippocampus hilus region, M: motor cortex, PtA: parietal association cortex, RSA and RSG: retrosplenial cortex agranular and granular areas, S1: primary somatosensory cortex). (c–g) Parvalbumin+ cell density in the (c) Cg, (d) S1, (e) Cpu, (f) RSG and (g) PtA of female and male hamsters at 21 dpi. Data normalized to PBS control group. Bars represent mean ± SEM, circles depict individual animals. Mark the different scales on the y-axes. Statistics: Mann–Whitney U test was used to compare SARS-CoV-2 21 dpi vs PBS. Decimal numbers above columns are p values of trends. Significance levels above the bars: ∗p < 0.05. Sample sizes: Cg: 14, 10, 14, 18; S1: 14, 13, 14, 18; Cpu: 14, 13, 16, 16; RSG: 13, 12, 15, 16; PtA: 10, 8, 13, 17. No outliers were excluded.