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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: Behav Brain Res. 2015 Nov 14;298(0 0):218–228. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.11.011

Figure 3. Effects of Reproductive State and Antenatal Forced Swim Test on Microglia Density in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex and CA1, CA3, and Dentate Gyrus Regions of the Hippocampus Immediately Postpartum.

Figure 3

Stressed rats received daily forced swim test from Embryonic (E) day 16 through E21 while rats in the No Stress groups remained undisturbed. Rats were sacrificed on the day of birth (P0) or 24 hours after the last day of forced swim test for non-pregnant animals and the density of Iba1 stain was performed in the (A) Medial Prefrontal Cortex, (B) CA1 hippocampus, (C) CA3 hippocampus, and (D) Dentate Gyrus [DG] of the hippocampus. B. Analysis of CA1 Iba1 densitometry revealed a significant main effect of reproductive state (p < 0.001) such that only postpartum females had significantly lower integrated density of microglia compared to non-pregnant animals. D. The DG revealed both a significant main effect of reproductive state as well as a main effect of sub-chronic stress (p < 0.05). There were no significant effects on integrated density of microglia in the mPFC or CA3 regions. *: p < 0.05; #: p < 0.001