Fig. 1

Long-term treatment with D-PUFAs prevents behavioral abnormalities and nigrostriatal DA neurodegeneration in rats overexpressing human α-syn. a Experimental design. b Percent change in animal body mass. c Spontaneous cylinder exploration. d Postural instability test. Behavioral assessment was performed at 12 weeks. Values expressed are mean ± SEM of twenty rats per group and analyzed using Mann–Whitney U for rat weight and paired Student’s t-test or two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test for behavior. ****p < 0.0001 and *p < 0.05. e Combination of DAB-labeling immunostaining for TH⁺ (brown) with alkaline phosphatase staining for human α-syn (blue) in the rat SN. Representative micrographs were captured at low magnification (4 ×). Insets correspond to high magnification images (10 ×) of the dorsolateral region. f Unbiased stereological estimation of the total number of TH⁺-immunopositive neurons. Scale bar: 200 μm for low magnification and 100 μm for high magnification. Nine to eleven SN sections per animal were analyzed. Values expressed are mean ± SEM of six different rats per group and analyzed using two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test. **p < 0.01. g Near-infrared images of the striatum depicting TH⁺ (green) and human α-syn (red) immunoreactive signal. h Quantitative analysis of striatal TH⁺ fiber density. Data from 6 sections per animal were pooled and presented as the average mean optical density ± SEM. Experimental groups comprised 5–7 rats. Scale bar: 1 mm. ****p < 0.0001 (two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc multiple comparisons test)