The Immune Response in Two Models of Traumatic Injury of the Immature Brain

Zahra F Al-Khateeb1, Siân M Henson2, Jordi L Tremoleda1

  • 1Centre for Neuroscience, Surgery and Trauma, The Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.

Cells
|October 15, 2024
PubMed

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause major disability and increases the risk of neurodegeneration. Post-TBI, there is infiltration of peripheral myeloid and lymphoid cells; there is limited information on the peripheral immune response post-TBI in the immature brain-where injury may interfere with neurodevelopment. We carried out two injury types in juvenile mice: invasive TBI with a controlled cortical impact (CCI) and repetitive mild TBI (rmTBI) using weight drop injury and analysed the response at 5- and 35-days post-injury. In the two models, we detected the brain infiltration of immune cells (e.g., neutrophils, monocytes, dendritic cells, CD4+ T cells, and NK cells). There were increases in macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in the spleen, increases in dendritic cells in blood, and increases in CD8+ T cells and B cells in lymph nodes. These results indicate a complex peripheral immune response post-TBI in the immature brain, with differences between an invasive injury and a repetitive mild injury.

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