Fig. 1

Traumatic brain injury models with controlled cortical impact in mice. a–b Rotarod test (a) and foot-fault test (b) were performed on 0, 1 day and 3 days post operation (DPO) in sTBI mice (n = 8) or mTBI mice (n = 7). Dash lines indicate average value from sham-operated group (n = 5). In a–b mean ± SD; ***, P < 0.001 between sTBI and mTBI groups; NS, non-significant (P > 0.05), one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post-hoc tests. c Representative images of cresyl violet staining of brain sections from sham-operated, sTBI and mTBI mice. Scale bar = 1 mm (left), and 50 µm (right) in high magnification. Arrow indicates cortical lesion; arrowhead indicates enlarged perivascular space. d Quantification of TBI-induced lesion volume at 24 h post-injury in sTBI mice and mTBI mice. The injury resulted in a significantly larger lesion volume in sTBI mice when compared with mTBI mice. n = 7 mice per group. e–f Representative images e of fluorescence immunostaining for SMI-32 (green) and DAPI (blue), quantification of SIM-32 fluorescence intensity f in cortex (CTX) and hippocampus (Hip) of sham-operated, sTBI and mTBI mice 3 days after injury. Scale bar = 50 µm, n = 5 mice in sham-operated, sTBI and mTBI group respectively. In d, f, Mean ± SD; ***, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test