Fig. 1

Glial morphology, but not overall cell number, changes during CTE pathological stage progression. a-c Quantification of the total number of Iba1 positive (a), GFAP positive (b), and CD68 positive cells present at the depths of the sulci in the dorsolateral frontal cortex. d Representative images at 10× (d) and 63× (e) magnification of Iba1 depicting the morphologic change of microglia into activated, reactive morphology (arrows). f Representative image of Iba1 immunoreacive microglia surrounding clusters of AT8 immunoreactive cells. White arrows denote Iba1 cell body near AT8 aggregates. Blue arrow denotes microglia process contacting AT8 immunoreactive neuron. Data displayed as mean ± SEM, scale bars represent 300 μm (d) and 50 μm (e,f), *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01