Estrogen attenuated neuronal death following acute SCI. (a) Double immunofluorescent labelings for detecting neuronal death were performed using caudal penumbra spinal cord sections from sham and SCI rats treated with vehicle or dose-dependent estrogen (1, 5, or 10 µg/kg). Images captured at the dorsal horn are represented as TUNEL staining (red), NeuN staining (green) and co-staining in the merge panel whereas images in ventral horn as represented as merge only. (n = 3–6, 200× magnification). (b) TUNEL-positive neurons (yellow, merge) were estimated in SCI tissue. At P = 0.05, sham + vehicle and sham + estrogen were not significantly different. *P < 0.05 as compared to sham and @P < 0.05 as compared to injury + vehicle.