Figure 2. Lithium at 3 mM protects neurosphere proliferation after irradiation.

A. Representative pictures at 48 hours time after irradiation showing the neurosphere size in different conditions: sham, irradiated, irradiated+1 mM LiCl and irradiated+3 mM LiCl. B. Bar graph of the quantification of the volume of the neurospheres at 24 and 48 hours times after irradiation showing the effect of irradiation on reduction of neurosphere size at both times ***p_{24 hours} = 0.0002 and ****p_{48 hours} < 0.0001. The higher, but not the low, concentration of lithium significantly rescued the neurosphere size from irradiation damage *p_{3 mM_24 hours} = 0.0309 and **p_{3 mM_48 hours} = 0.0054. C. Bar graph of the quantification of BrdU 48 hours after irradiation showing that irradiation reduces significantly neural stem cells proliferation ***p_{48 hours} = 0.0004 and that 3 mM LiCl significantly increases neural stem proliferation both in sham and irradiated groups, respectively **p_{sham_3 mM} = 0.0012 and **p_{irr_3 mM} = 0.0021. Data are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3–6.