Fig. 5

Reversal of aberrant dendritic phenotypes functionally correlates with the rehabilitation therapy induced therapeutic benefits. (a) Behavioral performance of adhesive removal task before or at 1, 7, 14, 21 or 28 days after MCAO surgery. Gray area represents the rehabilitation therapy of a period of fourteen days for the Rehab group. Two-way ANOVA analysis showed significant difference between the treatments (p < 0.01) and Bonferroni’s post hoc: p < 0.05 for the time points of 21 and 28 days. n = 10 mice. (b) Object location memory test before or days after MCAO surgery. Two-way ANOVA analysis showed significance between the treatments (p < 0.01) and Bonferroni’s post hoc: p < 0.05 for the time points of 28 days after MCAO. n = 10 mice. (c) Rotarod test before or days after MCAO surgery. Two-way ANOVA analysis showed significant difference between the treatments (p < 0.001) and Bonferroni’s post hoc: p < 0.05 for the time points of 21 and 28 days. n = 10 mice. (d) Representative images of the retroviral labeled newly generated neurons at 14 dpi from sham-operated or MCAO mice with or without rehabilitation therapy. (e) Quantification of total dendritic length and number of branches from 14 dpi newborn neurons. One-way ANOVA for total dendritic length (F = 8.629, p < 0.001) with Bonferroni’s post hoc analysis. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. n = 20 to 40 cells from four mice, * p < 0.05. (f-h) Pearson’s correlation between the total dendritic length averaged from five labeled cells by individual animals with their different neurological function at 28 days after MCAO surgery. n = 10 mice