Figure 3.

Corticosterone and DHEA levels in zebra finch plasma, whole blood, and brain (cTel, caudal telencephalon). For corticosterone, brain levels are significantly lower than plasma levels but not significantly lower than whole blood levels. For DHEA, brain and plasma levels are similar, but brain levels are significantly higher than whole blood levels. Thus, the use of plasma samples (which overestimate circulating steroid levels) or whole blood samples can lead to very different interpretations when comparing tissue steroid levels against circulating steroid levels. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001. Reprinted with permission from Taves et al. (2010).