Fig. 5.

Crocin-related effect on depressive-like behaviors and neurogenesis were blocked in GFAP-TK mice with VGCV treatment. (A) Timeline of GFAP-TK mice experiment. GFAP-TK mice were treated with VGCV for 6 weeks. Crocin treatment started from 12th week. (B) Young granule neurons (red) cells expressing DCX in DG of wild type mice. No DCX⁺ cells can be detected in DG of GFAP-TK mice. Scale bar: 100 μm. (C) Quantification of total number of DCX⁺ cells in DG under crocin treatment. (D-E) The effect of crocin on immobility time of GFAP-TK mice or wild type mice in TST and FST. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. Two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post hoc test. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ns, no significance.