Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury results in devastating, life-long disability for the affected children. At present, hypothermia is the only treatment for neonatal HI and it is incompletely effective. 45% of treated infants still die or sustain severe neurodevelopmental disability following HI. Designing safe, effective, mechanistically novel adjuvant therapies is the highest priority in this field of research. In concert, there is a need to develop mechanistically-based, reliable biomarkers to track novel therapies and measure their efficacy. Our identification of programmed necrosis as a mechanism of injury in neonatal HI provides an opportunity to identify novel therapies. That programmed necrosis may be operative in neonatal HI is clinically compelling. Programmed necrosis, unlike classical necrosis, is regulated, treatable, and is well understood in vitro. How and whether hypothermia acts to inhibit programmed necrosis is unknown and very important to the successful development of adjuvant therapies for neonatal HI. The in vivo neural target of hypothermia and programmed necrosis inhibitors is also a gap in our knowledge. Effects of hypothermia on neurons are best known. Little is known about the effects of hypothermia on glia and nothing is known about the effects of programmed necrosis inhibitors. Glia, oligodendroglia and astrocytes, clearly contribute to the overall encephalopathy resulting from neonatal HI. Astrocytes, in particular, may play a pivotal role in initiation of and protection from HI by both hypothermia and programmed necrosis inhibitors. Because of their possible involvement in the initiation and response to HI injury and treatment, astrocytic release of glial fibrillary acid proein (GFAP) may be the reliable, regionally specific, mechanistically-based biomarker that we seek for neonatal HI brain injury. In this proposal, we will use an established model of neonatal HI and hypothermia address each of these research priorities and areas of knowledge gap. We will test the hypothesis that hypothermia provides neuroprotection following neonatal HI by interrupting programmed necrosis. Subsequently, using data from these experiments we will test combinations of hypothermia, anti-programmed necrosis and anti-apoptosis treatments for treatment of neonatal HI and GFAP as an experimental biomarker. In doing so we will forge new pathways in neonatal brain injury research These experiments address critical, timely, and highly relevant issues in neonatal brain injury.

Public Health Relevance

These studies address one of the highest priorities in neonatal brain injury; finding novel therapies to combine with our current treatment for neonatal hypoxic ischemic brain injury. Additionally, we will be applying a promising clinical biomarker to an experimental model, to test its ability to predict severity of injury and response to treatment. Results from these studies have the potential to fundamentally alter our understanding of how hypoxic ischemic injury causes brain damage and how to significantly improve treatment for this devastating injury.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD070996-04
Application #
8856615
Study Section
Developmental Brain Disorders Study Section (DBD)
Program Officer
Urv, Tiina K
Project Start
2012-08-17
Project End
2017-04-30
Budget Start
2015-05-01
Budget End
2016-04-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
$356,524
Indirect Cost
$136,447
Name
Johns Hopkins University
Department
Pediatrics
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
001910777
City
Baltimore
State
MD
Country
United States
Zip Code
21205
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Wu, Dan; Li, Qiang; Northington, Frances J et al. (2018) Oscillating gradient diffusion kurtosis imaging of normal and injured mouse brains. NMR Biomed 31:e3917
Chavez-Valdez, Raul; Emerson, Paul; Goffigan-Holmes, Janasha et al. (2018) Delayed injury of hippocampal interneurons after neonatal hypoxia-ischemia and therapeutic hypothermia in a murine model. Hippocampus 28:617-630
Carrasco, Melisa; Perin, Jamie; Jennings, Jacky M et al. (2018) Cerebral Autoregulation and Conventional and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy. Pediatr Neurol 82:36-43
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Chavez-Valdez, Raul; O'Connor, Matthew; Perin, Jamie et al. (2017) Sex-specific associations between cerebrovascular blood pressure autoregulation and cardiopulmonary injury in neonatal encephalopathy and therapeutic hypothermia. Pediatr Res 81:759-766
Lemmon, Monica E; Donohue, Pamela K; Parkinson, Charlamaine et al. (2017) Parent Experience of Neonatal Encephalopathy. J Child Neurol 32:286-292
Lee, Jennifer K; Poretti, Andrea; Perin, Jamie et al. (2017) Optimizing Cerebral Autoregulation May Decrease Neonatal Regional Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury. Dev Neurosci 39:248-256

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