Excitotoxicity Alters Endogenous Secretoneurin Plasma Levels, but Supplementation with Secretoneurin Does Not Protect against Excitotoxic Neonatal Brain Injury

Publication date: Available online 21 May 2019Source: NeuroscienceAuthor(s): Anna Posod, Karina Wechselberger, Anna Schmid, Eva Huber, Martina Urbanek, Ursula Kiechl-Kohlendorfer, Elke GriesmaierAbstractExcitotoxicity plays an important role in the pathogenesis of developing brain injury. The neuropeptide secretoneurin (SN) has neuroprotective potential. The aim of this study was to investigate SN plasma concentrations following excitotoxicity and to evaluate the effect of SN as therapeutic strategy in excitotoxic newborn brain injury. Baseline SN plasma concentrations were established in healthy animals. To evaluate the effect of an excitotoxic insult on SN levels, mice pups were subjected to an intracranial injection of ibotenic acid and SN plasma concentrations were measured thereafter. To assess SN's neuroprotective potential, a subgroup of animals was randomly assigned to the following groups: i) “single treatment”: vehicle 1x phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), SN 0.25 μg/g body weight (bw), SN 2.5 μg/g bw or SN 12.5 μg/g bw in a single dose one hour after insult; ii) “acute repetitive treatment”: vehicle 1x PBS or SN 0.25 μg/g bw every 24 h starting one hour after insult; iii) “delayed repetitive treatment”: vehicle 1x PBS or SN 0.25 μg/g bw every 24 h starting 60 h after insult. Animals subjected to excitotoxic injury showed significantly lower SN plasma concentrations 6 and 120 h after insult in comparison to healthy controls. Administ...

Source: Neuroscience - May 21, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research