Fig. 5. Spinal glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity immediately (A  and B ) or 3 weeks (C  and D ) after the 3-day treatment with continuous intrathecal methylprednisolone or saline started 7 days after nerve ligation. Astrocytic activation was remarkably inhibited in rats treated with intrathecal methylprednisolone (B ) as compared with saline (A ). The astrocytic activation responses were weak in both the saline (C ) and the methylprednisolone groups (D ) 3 weeks after the treatment, i.e. , 31 days after spinal nerve ligation. Bar = 100 μm.