FIG. 5.

Methylene blue (MB) intervention attenuated acute depressive-like behavior 7 d post-injury. Adult male (3 months old) BALB/c mice were subjected to sham injury (Sham) or traumatic brain injury (TBI) and within 15–30 min received an intravenous injection of vehicle control (Con) or MB (2 mg/kg). (A) Body weight was assessed every day for 7 d post-injury (n=9–14). (B) Motor coordination was determined 3 d before injury and again at 1 h, and 1, 4, and 7 d post-injury (n=4–8). (C) At 7 d post-injury, depressive-like behavior was determined by tail suspension test (TST). Total average time spent immobile is shown for all groups (n=9–14). (D) Total time spent immobile was plotted versus the percentage of mice that were immobile. The vertical line at 270 sec denotes that less than 10% of sham mice were immobile for longer than 270 sec. (E) Percentage of mice from each group that were immobile for longer than 270 sec (4.5 min) in the TST. Points and bars represent the mean±standard error of the mean. Means with (*) are significantly different (p<0.05) than Sham-Con. Means with (#) are significantly different (p<0.05) from TBI-Con. Means with (+) tend to be different (p=0.1) from Sham-Con.