Fig. 7: Therapeutic administration of androgens mitigates the course of EAE in female mice.

a Functional scores derived from EAE ovariectomized female mice treated with the drug vehicle (Veh), testosterone (T) or dihydrotestosterone (DHT) at onset of the first neurological symptoms (day 1) for 30 days (two-way ANOVA: treatment: F(2, 1307) = 298.2, p < 0.0001; time: F(29, 1307) = 33.23, p < 0.0001). b, c Smi-32 and MBP IHF performed on spinal cord slices derived from animals of each group. The boxed areas are magnified in the bottom panels. Determination of the fluorescent area is shown in the histograms on the right. d, e Electron microscopy analysis of the spinal cords and determination of the g-ratios plotted according to axon diameter or represented by their mean value. f, g Visualization and quantification of microglia immunostained with Iba1 (red) and Arg-1 (green) as markers of the whole microglia population and the cell subset that express the anti-inflammatory molecule Arg-1, respectively. h, i Visualization and quantification of astrocytes by using GFAP. j, k Detection of the tight junction protein Claudin-5 in each animal group. The boxed areas are magnified in the insets. Data are the mean ± SEM from n = 12 animals/condition in (a) or from n = 8 animals/condition in g, i, k examined in a single experiment (3–4 slices/per animal). 600–900 axons from n = 3 mice in (e) were evaluated. P values were calculated by using the Kruskal-Wallis test together with Dunn’s.multiple comparisons test (c, g) or one-way ANOVA test together with Tukey’s (e, k) or Holm-Sidak’s i multiple comparisons test. Brown-Forsythe correction was used in (k). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 ****p < 0.0001 versus the control condition. Scale bars (µm): 200 in (b top), 50 f, h, j, 25 (b bottom). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.