Fig. 5

Cellular apoptosis increases following SCI at 3 and 7 dpi vs. naive mice, while neuronal-specific apoptosis is increased from 3 to 28 dpi vs. naive and at 3 dpi vs. sham. Longitudinal spinal cord sections of SCI, sham, and naive mice were labeled for ClCasp3 (magenta), NeuN (yellow), and DAPI (cyan). a Representative images of the affected areas of SCI, sham, and naive spinal tissue at different time points. b Timeline of all ClCasp3 + spinal cord cells represented as the fold change of naive mice. In the general spinal cord cell population, apoptosis is increased at 3 and 7 dpi compared to naive mice. c Timeline of ClCasp3 + neurons represented as the fold change of naive mice. In the neuronal-specific population, SCI increases apoptosis at 3 dpi compared to sham mice and from 3 to 28 dpi compared to naive mice. Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s correction for multiple testing was applied. n = 6–10. Error bars represent means ± SD. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01