Effect of early exercise on brain damage and apoptosis after TBI in the rat brain. (A) The representative pictures of whole brain and brain slice sections of Sham, TBI, TBI-E animals. The brain sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin on day 14 after TBI. Scale bar, 1 mm. (B) The relative percent volume of damaged brain area is presented in the form of bar graphs. (C) The representative fluorescence images demonstrating TUNEL-positive nuclei (red color) on rat brain 14 days after TBI (scale bar, 50 μm). (D) The relative percentage of TUNEL-positive cells is presented through bar graphs. (E) The expression of BAX and cleaved caspase-3 was detected through immune blot analysis on days 3, 7, and 14 after TBI, and the β-actin was used as loading control. (F) The relative protein expressions of BAX and cleaved caspase-3 are presented through bar graphs. The data are presented as mean ± SE of three independent experiments. *P < 0.05.
