Exercise preserves neurovascular unit integrity in aged mice.

(A–B) Age-related intravascular and extravascular deposition of FIBRIN (red) is significantly reduced in aged runner mice. Microvessels are immunostained with endothelial CD31 (cyan). (C) PDGFRβ⁺ pericyte (magenta) number and coverage are significantly increased in aged runners when compared with aged sedentary mice. (D) Quantitative analysis of PDGFRβ⁺ pericytes number and coverage. (E) AQP4 (blue) immunoreactivity of astrocyte endfeet is significantly increased in aged runners when compared with aged sedentary mice. (F) AQP4 protein levels show a significant preservation of both parameters on aged runner mice. In panels (D–F), values are mean + SEM, n = 4 aging mice, n = 6 aged Sd mice and n = 6 aged Rn mice. In (B) *p = 0.014 and (F) *p = 0.0318 by unpaired t test. In (D) ****p < 0.0001 and ***p = 0.0014 by ANOVA followed by Tukey’s posthoc tests. Scale Bars: 50 μm. The data used to make this figure can be found in S1 Dataset.