Long-term benefits after treatment of traumatic brain injury with simvastatin in rats

This study was designed to investigate the long-term effects of simvastatin treatment after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rats.

Adult female Wistar rats (n = 24) were injured with controlled cortical impact and divided into 3 groups. The first 2 groups were treated with simvastatin (0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg) administered orally for 14 days starting 1 day after TBI. The third group (control) received phosphate-buffered saline orally for 14 days. Neurological functional outcome was measured with modified neurological severity scores performed 1 day before TBI; on days 1, 4, 7, 14 after TBI; and biweekly thereafter. All animals were sacrificed 3 months after TBI. Brain tissues of half of the animals were processed for preparation of paraffin-embedded sections for immunohistological studies. The remaining half were frozen for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay studies for quantification of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus and cortex.

The results showed that both doses of simvastatin significantly improved functional outcome compared with the control, with no difference between the 2 doses. Simvastatin treatment of 1.0 mg/kg increased the number of morphologically intact neurons in the hippocampus, but treatment of 0.5 mg/kg had no significant effect. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay studies showed that 0.5 mg/kg simvastatin significantly increased BDNF levels within the hippocampus, but 1.0 mg/kg had no significant effect. Neither dose had any effect on BDNF levels within the cortex.

Simvastatin treatment provides long-lasting functional improvement after TBI in rats. It also enhances neuronal survival in the hippocampus and increases BDNF levels in the hippocampus secondary to simvastatin treatment.