Traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents a significant cause of death and disability in industrialized countries. Of particular importance to patients is the chronic effect that TBI has on cognitive function. Therapeutic strategies have been difficult to evaluate because of the complexity of injuries and variety of patient presentations within a TBI population. Experimental therapies based upon cortical and hippocampal neuroprotection have not translated clinically. However, pharmacotherapies targeting dopamine (DA) have consistently shown benefits in attention, behavioral outcome, executive function, and memory. Striatal damage causes deficits in executive function, learning, and memory. Dopamine and cAMP regulated phosphoprotein 32 (DARPP-32), expressed within striatal medium spiny neurons, is known to regulate several substrates of cognition. We found that controlled cortical impact injury in rats produces a chronic decrease in DARPP-32 threonine-34 phosphorylation and increase in protein phosphatase-1 activity. There is no effect of injury on threonine-75 phosphorylation or DARPP-32 protein. Amantadine has known benefits on post-TBI cognitive deficits and when given daily for two weeks reversed the DARPP-32 and protein phosphatase-1 changes. Amantadine also decreased the phosphorylation of threonine-75 consistent with activity as a partial N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor antagonist and partial dopamine agonist. FK-506, also known as tacrolimus, is a calcineurin inhibitor that has been shown to decrease cell death in the hippocampus following a fluid percussion experimental TBI. Calcineurin is also an important regulator of DARPP-32 phosphorylation in the striatum. We evaluated the effect of FK-506 on the hippocampus and DARPP-32 in the striatum to better detail its effects after a TBI. An acute administration of FK-506 following controlled cortical impact reversed the effects of TBI on DARPP-32 phosphorylation seen chronically. We then evaluated the effect of a combined drug therapy on cognitive deficits post TBI. An acute treatment with FK-506 post TBI followed by chronic Amantadine therapy demonstrated an improvement in both motor behavior and Morris water maze deficits seen following TBI. Neither drug produced benefit when given alone. These data demonstrate that DARPP-32 represents a promising new therapeutic target for TBI induced cognitive deficits.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07152010-093018 |
| Date | 26 July 2010 |
| Creators | Bales, James William |
| Contributors | C. Edward Dixon, PhD, Thomas Reeves, PhD, Anthony Grace, PhD, Anthony E. Kline, PhD, Amy Wagner, MD, Steven Graham, MD, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07152010-093018/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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