Microglia modulate concussion biomarkers and cognitive recovery in male mice

Abstract

There is a critical unmet need for concussion biomarkers that predict cognitive recovery. Existing TBI biomarkers largely capture acute cellular damage rather than the multicellular repair processes that determine long-term outcome, and whether microglia causally shape divergent trajectories remains unclear. Here, we used PLX5622 to deplete microglia and other CSF1R-dependent myeloid cells in a male mouse model comparing concussion alone to concussion preconditioned by prior subconcussive impacts. Microglial depletion had no effect on cognitive outcome after concussion alone, but introduced a significant novel object recognition deficit specifically when concussion was preconditioned, revealing a history-dependent role for microglia in recovery. To identify the molecular substrates of this divergence, we profiled brain-derived GluA1/2+ extracellular vesicle (EV) miRNAs and single-nuclei transcriptomes from the injured brain. Diagnostic and injury-history EV miRNA biomarkers discriminated between concussion subtypes in microglia-intact animals but lost this discriminative power after depletion, indicating that these neuron-enriched biomarkers are influenced by microglia-dependent biology rather than injury alone. snRNA-seq further revealed that microglial depletion selectively induced transcriptional programs related to oligodendrocyte maturation after unconditioned concussion, a candidate substrate for this microglia-dependence. Finally, we identified a serum EV miRNA panel that estimated cognitive recovery across injury conditions. Together, these findings identify a history-dependent role for microglia in concussion outcome and characterize brain-derived EVs as a potentially promising tool for surveilling the neuroinflammatory processes influencing recovery.