Detailed Mouse Procedures for Research

All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (covered by Animal welfare assurance No A3011-0), Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, and conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the National Institutes of Health “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals”. Experiments were performed using adult (2–3 months old) male mice [C57BL/6J (wt), CSPG4-EGFP (Jackson Labs, 022735 model FVB.Cg-Tg(CSPG4-EGFP*) HDbe/J), CX3CR1-GFP (Jackson Labs, 005582 model B6.129P-Cx3cr1tm1Litt/J), PDGFRα-CreERT2 (Tg(Pdgfra-cre/ERT2)1Wdr; from^{58 (link)}), Rosa26-ΕYFP (Jackson Labs, 006148 model B6.129X1-Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1(EYFP) Cos/J)] were used wherever mentioned. All the mouse lines were backcrossed to a C57BL/6J background, bred in-house, and genotyped by PCR. CD-1 retired-breeder male mice (Charles River Laboratories, CD-1 IGS mice, strain code:022) were used as aggressors. For induction of recombination in the PDGFRα-CreERT2 :: Rosa26-EYFP mice, tamoxifen (Sigma CAS # 10540-29-1) dissolved in ethanol : sunflower seed oil was injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) starting at P30, at a daily dose of 75 μg/g body weight (from a 10 mg/ml stock), for 5 consecutive days, as in^{25 (link)}. All animals were housed in 12-h light/dark cycle. Food and water were provided ad libitum by the experimenters.