Fig. 3

Microglial activation induced by MW exposure. a Timeline of experiment procedure. b Imaris-based 3D reconstruction images of Iba-1⁺ microglia in mPFC. Scale bars: 8 μm. c–f Imaris-based morphometric analysis of microglia in mPFC (n = 5). g–h Representative blot and quantitative analysis of the protein expression of Iba-1, TNF-α and CD68 in mPFC (n = 8). i Representative immunostaining of Iba-1 (green, Alexa Fluor 488) and TNFα (red, Alexa Fluor 568) in mPFC (n = 5). Scale bars: 20 μm. j Quantification of Iba-1 positive rate. k Quantification of the percentage of Iba-1⁺ and TNFα⁺ to Iba-1⁺ neurons after MW radiation. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 (One-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparisons test)