Impact of an Early Life Immune Challenge on Outcomes in a Rat Model of Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Abstract
The focus of this thesis was to determine if neonatal exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on postnatal day (P) 10 would affect the behavioural and molecular outcomes after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) on P30. It appears that female LPS + mTBI rats show alterations in measures of anxiety, working memory and depressive-like behaviour - different from those not previously exposed to LPS. In addition to behavioural changes, the mRNA expression profiles of LPS + mTBI rats showed a differential cytokine response at P45 in comparison to rats that received LPS, mTBI, or saline injury controls (SAL + mTBI). Cytokine mRNA levels were followed up by analyzing two microglia/macrophage phenotype markers; the markers also showed an altered profile for LPS + mTBI animals. The findings of the work highlight the importance of sex differences and suggest that an early life immune challenge could confer selective susceptibility to outcomes after mTBI.
Description
Keywords
Neuroscience
Citation
Candy, S. A. (2016). Impact of an Early Life Immune Challenge on Outcomes in a Rat Model of Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26455