Fig. 2.

NSC EV treatment disrupts characteristic correlations of midline shift with chronic day 84 functional outcomes measurements. a Animals were divided into NSC EV treatment or PBS groups and received treatment or vehicle at 2, 14, and 24 h post-MCAO. MRI was conducted at day 1 and day 84 post-MCAO. Gait and behavior testing was conducted during the intervening 12 weeks as diagramed. Box and whisker plots of average degree of MLS in the axial (b) (p = 0.8079) and coronal (c) (p = 0.7587) planes between NSC EV–treated and non-treated groups showed no significant difference. The box represents the interquartile range, the solid horizontal line represents the mean, and whiskers reach to 5th and 95th percentiles. Linear regression of day 1 post-MCAO axial MLS of non-treated animals showed strong correlations at day 84 post-MCAO while NSC EV–treated animals did not in functional measurements of cadence (d, non-treated: R² = 0.908765, p = 0.0120; NSC EVs: R² = 0.793059, p = 0.1095), cycle time in the right hind limb (e, non-treated: R² = 0.981288, p = 0.0011; NSC EVs: R² = 0.836310, p = 0.0855), cycle time in the left hind limb (f, non-treated: R² = 0.996347, p < 0.0001; NSC EVs: R² = 0.7512, p = 0.01312), step time in the left hind limb (g, non-treated: R² = 0.884398, p = 0.0173; NSC EVs: R² = 0.563012, p = 0.2497), stance time in the left front limb (h, non-treated: R² = 0.918774, p = 0.0101; NSC EVs: R² = 0.927527, p = 0.1735), and pressure time in the left hind limb (i, non-treated: R² = 0.991121, p = 0.0004; NSC EVs: R² = 0.835284, p = 0.0861)