Quantitative monitoring of neuronal regeneration by functional assay and wireless neural recording

Abstract

Brain injury is heterozygous in nature and no single scheme is ideal for diagnosis and prognosis. Assessing proteins in cerebrospinal fluid is limited or not applicable after surgery whereas plasma biomarkers can only report occurrence of injury. The lack of regeneration markers renders the difficulty during drug discovery. This study aims to establish a potential reporter that correlates the regeneration progress of injured brain neurons. According to our recent publication, treatment of mitochondrial uncoupler carbonyl cyanide 4-(trifluoromethoxy) phenylhydrazone (FCCP) could rescue motor function deficit of mice after traumatic brain injury. We thus measured the local field potential (LFP) at sites proximal to the injury region. The recorded neuronal activity reported stimulation of right forelimb of mice. Our experimental results indicate that the recovery of evoked LFP correlates with FCCP treatment and could potentially be used as a regeneration biomarker. These promising findings suggest future application of a wireless, non-invasive recording system as a potential companion diagnosis device during drug development.