We can use the distribution of the activation scores of microglia to evaluate how activation progresses with β-amyloid pathology. We can observe a clear shift in activation scores in the top figure, where the wild-type (WT) mice have very low microglia activation scores. and the scores in the transgenic mice progressively increase as they get older.

To gain further insights into the activation scores independently of microglia cell count, we can plot the cumulative distribution of activation scores. The cumulative function in the bottom figure shows the percentage of cells with an activation score less than that value on the x-axis. For example, over 95% of cells in WT mice have an activation score lower than 0.2, whereas 12 month-old transgenic mice have less than 80% of cells with an activation score lower than 0.2. Therefore, both the number of microglia and their distribution of activation show age-dependent changes in the disease model.