Mossy cell hypertrophy and synaptic changes in the hilus following mild diffuse traumatic brain injury in pigs

Each year in the USA, over 2.4 million people experience mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), which can induce long-term neurological deficits. The dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is notably susceptible to damage following TBI, as hilar mossy cell changes in particular may contribute to post-TBI dysfunction. Moreover, microglial activation after TBI may play a role in hippocampal circuit and/or synaptic remodeling; however, the potential effects of chronic microglial changes are currently unknown. The objective of the current study was to assess neuropathological and neuroinflammatory changes in subregions of the dentate gyrus at acute to chronic time points following mild TBI using an established model of closed-head rotational acceleration induced TBI in pigs.

This study utilized archival tissue of pigs which were subjected to sham conditions or rapid head rotation in the coronal plane to generate mild TBI. A quantitative assessment of neuropathological changes in the hippocampus was performed via immunohistochemical labeling of whole coronal tissue sections at 3 days post-injury (DPI), 7 DPI, 30 DPI, and 1 year post-injury (YPI), with a focus on mossy cell atrophy and synaptic reorganization, in context with microglial alterations (e.g., density, proximity to mossy cells) in the dentate gyrus.

There were no changes in mossy cell density between sham and injured animals, indicating no frank loss of mossy cells at the mild injury level evaluated. However, we found significant mossy cell hypertrophy at 7 DPI and 30 DPI in anterior (> 16% increase in mean cell area at each time; p = <  0.001 each) and 30 DPI in posterior (8.3% increase; p = <  0.0001) hippocampus. We also found dramatic increases in synapsin staining around mossy cells at 7 DPI in both anterior (74.7% increase in synapsin labeling; p = <  0.0001) and posterior (82.7% increase; p = <  0.0001) hippocampus. Interestingly, these morphological and synaptic alterations correlated with a significant change in microglia in proximity to mossy cells at 7 DPI in anterior and at 30 DPI in the posterior hippocampus. For broader context, while we found that there were significant increases in microglia density in the granule cell layer at 30 DPI (anterior and posterior) and 1 YPI (posterior only) and in the molecular layer at 1 YPI (anterior only), we found no significant changes in overall microglial density in the hilus at any of the time points evaluated post-injury.

The alterations of mossy cell size and synaptic inputs paired with changes in microglia density around the cells demonstrate the susceptibility of hilar mossy cells after even mild TBI. This subtle hilar mossy cell pathology may play a role in aberrant hippocampal function post-TBI, although additional studies are needed to characterize potential physiological and cognitive alterations.