The animal work was conducted without gender bias under the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocol (PROTO999900242) approved by Rutgers University IACUC Committee. Primary astrocyte cultures were prepared using wild-type C57BL/6J mice aged between postnatal days 1 and 3 (P1 and P3), as reported (86, 87). Mouse cortices were enzymatically digested with papain in a solution containing 1 μM Ca2+ and 0.5 μM EDTA for 15 min at 37°C. After two passages to eliminate mouse neurons, the glial cells were cultured in DMEM (Gibco, catalog #11995065) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum.
