Figure 5.

Protein quantification of cortical BDNF, CD68, and MAP-2. (A) Cortical BDNF levels of sham-irradiated mice and mice irradiated with mixed beams. There was a sex × radiation interaction (F _3,35  = 4.772, p = 0.008). In male mice, there was an effect of irradiation in male mice (A) (F _3,17 = 5.040, p = 0.014). BDNF levels in male mice irradiated with 200 cGy were lower than those in sham-irradiated male mice (p = 0.014, Dunnett’s test). No significant effects were seen in female mice. (B) Cortical CD68 levels of sham-irradiated mice and mice irradiated with mixed beams. There was a sex × radiation interaction (F _3,17 = 5.040, p = 0.009). In female mice, there was a trend toward an effect of irradiation on CD68 levels (p = 0.068). CD68 levels were higher in mice irradiated with 200 cGy than sham-irradiated mice (p = 0.030, Dunnett’s test). No significant effects were seen in male mice. (C) There was a positive correlation between BDNF and CD68 when the female and male data were analyzed together (r = 0.6762, p < 0.0001, Spearman correlation). (D) There also was a positive correlation between BDNF and CD68 levels when the female (r = 0.5769, p = 0.0122, Spearman correlation) and male (r = 0.7688, p = 0.0002, Spearman correlation) data were analyzed separately. (E) There was a positive correlation between BDNF and CD68 levels when the female and male data were analyzed together (r = 0.6015, p = 0.0001, Pearson correlation). (F) Cortical levels of MAP-2 in sham-irradiated and mice irradiated with mixed beams show no difference due to sex (F _1,28 = 0.361, p = 0.553) or dose (F _3,28 = 1.253, p = 0.309). Male mice show a trending difference between sham-irradiated mice and mice irradiated with 25 cGy (p = 0.057, t-test). (G) In females, but not in males, there was a negative correlation between MAP-2 and CD68 (r = −0.473, p = 0.0226, Spearman correlation). (H) This negative correlation remained when data of sham-irradiated female mice were removed (r = −0.5191, p = 0.0273, Spearman correlation).