Fig. 2

Developmental nicotine treatment increases larval brain hemisphere area. Flies were raised on control food (black bars) or food laced with 0.3 mg/ml nicotine (red bars). Larvae were dissected at the 3rd instar stage of development; adults were dissected 4 days after eclosion. The brains were stained with anti-bruchpilot for visualization. a Larval brain hemisphere area was significantly larger in brains from nicotine-exposed larvae. b Adult brains had no difference in central brain area between conditions. Sample size for the larval stage was n = 35 brain hemispheres for control and n = 28 brain hemispheres for nicotine from 6 independent experiments and for adult was n = 24 brains for control and n = 21 brains for nicotine from 9 independent experiments. Student’s t-test was used to compare the control versus the nicotine condition