Fig. 5

Hippocampal vascular alterations associated with local inflammation. Stereological comparison of the ipsilateral (inflammation present, left side in panel a) and contralateral hippocampal (no inflammation present, right side in panel a) vasculatures in the brain of a blast-exposed rat. a, Optical coronal  sections (2.25 mm-thick) showing color-coded reconstructed cerebral vasculature from a micro-CT scan (interaural 7.20–4.95 mm). Hippocampal vasculature is indicated within the contours. Vasculature analysis was performed with the Vesselucida software (179 vessels analyzed in the non-affected side and 119 in the affected side). b-d, vessels length (b), volume (c) and diameter (d). e, percent vessels distribution relative to diameter. b-d, data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test; e, Fisher's exact test. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences between groups (**, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001). Scale, 1 mm