Fig. 1.

Both TMF-treated and AHRcKO mice attenuated acute cerebral infarction and functional impairments. a Representative brain slices with viable 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining at 48 h after permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) from wild-type (WT)-vehicle-treated mice, AHR antagonist TMF-treated mice, AHR^flx/flx mice, and AHRcKO mice. b The infarct volume was significantly reduced in the WT-TMF-treated group compared to the WT-vehicle-treated group, and AHRcKO mice also showed a significantly reduced infarct volume compared to AHR^flx/flx mice (n = 6/group). c The sensorimotor functions of the WT-TMF-treated mice compared with the WT-vehicle-treated mice (n = 7/group) in the adhesive removal test and the skilled forelimb-reaching pasta matrix test at 48 h and 7 days after MCAO. The novel object recognition test of nonspatial working memory was measured as the discrimination index compared with AHR^flx/flx mice (n = 8/group). The results are expressed as the means ± standard error of the mean. *p < 0.05 WT-TMF compared with WT-Vehicle. #p < 0.05 AHRcKO compared with AHR^flx/flx