Browsing by Author "Flood, Jennifer Margaret"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Minocycline treatment timing and its influence on serotonin expression following spinal cord injury
    (2019-11) Flood, Jennifer Margaret; Whelan, Patrick J.; Trang, Tuan; Casha, Steven; Ousman, Shalina S.
    The effects of incomplete traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) can be partly reversed by the plasticity of local and spared descending projections. A promising window of plasticity occurs for a number of weeks following injury and involves the control of neuroinflammatory processes. The FDA-approved drug, minocycline, is a promising drug for treating SCI since it decreases microglia activity, reduces macrophage activity, and generally provides neuroprotective properties. In this thesis I established a timeline of injury, looking at both serotonin (5-HT) and microglia/macrophage (Iba-1) immunoreactivity (ir), and I targeted a time point before a significant reduction of descending serotonergic fibers, in the form of 5-HTir, took place (i.e. 1-week). I found that the administration of minocycline increased 5-HTir caudal and ipsilateral to the lesion, compared to shams and controls. Using the selected time point, 1-week post-SCI, I administered minocycline and found a decrease in lesion size and an increase of 5-HTir both caudal and ipsilateral to the injury as well as rostral and contralateral to the injury. In this thesis, I provide evidence that minocycline impacts 5-HT expression when administered acutely and one week following SCI. These data suggest that the timing of minocycline treatment influences the neuroprotective properties previously reported and also influences descending 5-HT expression post-SCI.