*4.1. Animals and Experimental Design*

Male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 250–580 g each were purchased from Samtaco Animal Corp. All rats were housed individually in a room at 23 ◦C (room temperature) under an alternating 12 h light/dark cycle. The rats were fed a commercial diet and provided with tap water ad libitum throughout the study. Food and water were made accessible ad libitum. This experiment was conducted in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals,

revised in 1996, and was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kyung Hee University (KHUAP(SE)-18-073, 05/30/2018). In this study, the rats were randomly assigned to three groups: untreated, naïve (Normal, *n* = 9); TMT injected with vehicle (TMT, *n* = 5); and TMT injected along with 50 mg/kg−<sup>1</sup> Bean-PS (Bean-PS, *n* = 5). The rats were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with TMT (8.0 mg/kg, body weight) dissolved in 0.9% saline and then returned to their home cages. The TMT+Bean-PS mixture (50 mg/kg, oral administration (p.o.)) was dissolved in 10% hexane and orally administered for two weeks after TMT-induced neurodegeneration.

## *4.2. Drug Treatment*

PS was produced from soy lecithin by enzymatic transphophatidylation, and comprised a mixture of 90% phosphatidylserine (PS), 2% phosphatidylcholine (PC), and 6% phosphatidic acid (PA). The Bean-PS contained palmitic (17.7%), palmitoleic (1.3%), stearic (1.3%), oleic (14.4%), limoleic (61.2%), linolenic (1.4%), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and other fatty acids (9.4%). PS and 10% hexane, used as a solvent for PS, were provided by Doosan Co. Glonet BG (Youngin, Korea) and the PS was stored in a freezer (−60 ◦C).
