Figure 3. Alcohol drinking produces a shift in microglial cell morphology to a more reactive state in the in the mPFC of adolescent male and female rats.
Automated morphological analysis of microglial cells was conducted using Nikon NIS-Elements Advanced Research software. We obtained a measurement of total branching points per microglial cell in the mPFC. Alcohol shifted the population distribution of microglial cell morphology to the left in male and female rats, indicating a more “alert” structure in which cellular branching is more retracted in these animals (C, D, n=6 rats for each sex and treatment group. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, both ps < 0.05).