Controlled cortical impact before or after fear conditioning does not affect fear extinction in mice.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized in part by impaired extinction of conditioned fear. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is thought to be a risk factor for development of PTSD. We tested the hypothesis that controlled cortical impact (CCI) would impair extinction of fear learned by Pavlovian conditioning, in mice. To mimic the scenarios in which TBI occurs prior to or after exposure to an aversive event, severe CCI was delivered to the left parietal cortex at one of two time points: (1) Prior to fear conditioning, or (2) after conditioning. Delay auditory conditioning was achieved by pairing a tone with a foot shock in "context A". Extinction training involved the presentation of tones in a different context (context B) in the absence of foot shock. Test for extinction memory was achieved by presentation of additional tones alone in context B over the following two days. In pre- or post-injury paradigms, CCI did not influence fear learning and extinction. Furthermore, CCI did not affect locomotor activity or elevated plus maze testing. Our results demonstrate that, within the time frame studied, CCI does not impair the acquisition and expression of conditioned fear or extinction memory.

Role of Akt and mammalian target of rapamycin in functional outcome after concussive brain injury in mice.

Akt (protein kinase B) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of cell death and cognitive outcome after cerebral contusion in mice; however, a role for Akt/mTOR in concussive brain injury has not been well characterized. In a mouse closed head injury (CHI) concussion traumatic brain injury (TBI) model, phosphorylation of Akt (p-Akt), mTOR (p-mTOR), and S6RP (p-S6RP) was increased by 24 hours in cortical and hippocampal brain homogenates (P<0.05 versus sham for each), and p-S6RP was robustly induced in IBA-1+ microglia and glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive (GFAP+) astrocytes. Pretreatment with inhibitors of Akt or mTOR individually by the intracerebroventricular route reduced phosphorylation of their respective direct substrates FOXO1 (P<0.05) or S6RP (P<0.05) after CHI, confirming the activity of inhibitors. Rapamycin pretreatment significantly worsened hidden platform (P<0.01) and probe trial (P<0.05) performance in CHI mice. Intracerebroventricular administration of necrostatin-1 (Nec-1) before CHI increased hippocampal Akt and S6RP phosphorylation and improved place learning (probe trials, P<0.001 versus vehicle), whereas co-administration of rapamycin or Akt inhibitor with Nec-1 eliminated improved probe trial performance. These data suggest a beneficial role for Akt/mTOR signaling after concussion TBI independent of cell death that may contribute to improved outcome by Nec-1.