More than one million people are treated medically each year in the United States after sustaining a brain injury and traumatic brain injury (TBI) is often accompanied by the delayed development of posttraumatic epilepsy (PTE), for which there are few effective therapies. Although clinical association between TBI and epilepsy is well documented, treatments designed to prevent PTE have been largely unsuccessful. Among the most promising antiepileptogenic treatments reported to date center on inhibition of the mammalian (mechanistic) target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. mTOR is activated after TBI and seizures, and it's activity regulates a variety of cellular activities, including growth and proliferation, especially in developing neurons. Inhibiting mTOR activity has shown promise for altering the progression of epileptogenesis in rodent models of epilepsy, including PTE, but several caveats have also been acknowledged, specifically: Suppression of mTOR post-TBI has been proposed to prevent epileptogenesis, whereas mTOR activation has been proposed as a means of improving cognitive recovery after TBI in patients. The mechanisms by which mTOR modulation exerts its anti-epileptogenic effects are not known, and the contribution of newborn neurons and synaptic reorganization in the dentate gyrus to epileptogenesis and cognition are controversial. Preventing PTE is hampered by these fundamental knowledge gaps. This proposal will use the controlled cortical impact (CCI) model of TBI, which results in cell loss, increased neurogenesis and synaptic reorganization in the dentate gyrus, and delayed development of spontaneous seizures (i.e., epileptogenesis) to study the impact of newborn neurons on synaptic excitability changes in the dentate gyrus. The effects of both negative and positive regulation of mTOR on epileptogenesis and cognitive recovery will also be determined in the context of neurogenesis after brain injury. The overarching hypotheses are that adult born neurons contribute to synaptic reorganization after TBI and that mTOR activity-dependent regulation of neurogenesis alters epileptogenesis and post-TBI cognitive recovery. A combination of electrophysiological, histological, and behavioral techniques utilizing optogenetic and chemogenetic modification of adult born neurons will be used to address three aims: 1) Determine the functional synaptic organization of adult born DGCs after TBI; 2) Determine effects of mTOR modulation on neurogenesis and synaptic connectivity in the dentate gyrus after TBI; and 3) Determine how adult born DGCs contribute to functional recovery and seizures after TBI. A mechanistic understanding of how adult born neurons contribute to DGC circuitry and how mTOR modulation alters the circuitry of these neurons after CCI will be developed in the context of both cognitive recovery after TBI and development of PTE. A better understanding of the contribution of adult born neurons to recovery and epileptogenesis after TBI will facilitate the development of treatments to prevent PTE.
. After brain injury, synaptic reorganization, specifically involving newborn neurons in the dentate gyrus, may be involved in the development of posttraumatic epilepsy, and the increase in adult neurogenesis after brain injury is modulated by increasing or decreasing mTOR function. The function of adult born neurons after brain injury is incompletely described, hampering development of potential post-injury therapies based on mTOR modulation. Experiments in this proposal will examine how neurons born after brain injury integrate into hippocampal circuitry and contribute to post-injury recovery or pottraumatic epilepsy in order to better exploit the promising mTOR therapeutic pathway to both improve recovery and prevent development of epilepsy after brain injury.
