Fig. 1.

Sex- and region-specific differences in cytokine levels at baseline. Lewis and Brown Norway (BN) rats were injected i.m. with mixed immune challenge, adjuvant-only, or saline on P10. Samples were collected 2 or 5 days post-challenge and subjected to cytokine and chemokine profiling. a Illustration of experimental design with primary outcome measures. b, c Cytokine and chemokine levels under saline control conditions. b Cytokine levels compared within strains (BN (15; 6M, 9F), Lewis (15; 7M, 8F)) and between sexes; collapsed between time point of collection due to no differences observed. c Cytokine levels compared across region of collection; collapsed between sex, strain, and day of collection. N = 30 animals per region. Star (*) corresponds to comparisons between serum and all brain regions using the following scale: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Hashtag (#) represents comparisons solely between brain regions only using a similar scale. B.D. defined as below detection. All data are displayed as the natural log-transformed values with mean +/− SEM