Abstract
In an infant rat model of pneumococcal meningitis the effect of dexamethasone on neuronal injury in the hippocampus and on learning disability after recovery from the disease was examined. Treatment with dexamethasone or vehicle was started 18 h after infection, concomitant with antibiotics. Neuronal apoptosis in the hippocampal dentate gyrus 34 h after infection was significantly aggravated by dexamethasone treatment compared with vehicle controls (p = 0.02). Three weeks after acute pneumococcal meningitis, learning capacity of animals was assessed in the Morris water maze. The results showed a significantly impaired learning performance of infected animals treated with dexamethasone compared with vehicle controls (p = 0.01). Dexamethasone had no effect on hippocampal injury or learning in uninfected controls. Thus, dexamethasone as adjuvant therapy increased hippocampal cell injury and reduced learning capacity in this model of pneumococcal meningitis in infant rats.
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Abbreviations
- CSF:
-
cerebrospinal fluid
- DG:
-
dentate gyrus
- MMP:
-
matrix metalloproteinase
- PBN:
-
alpha- phenyl-tert-butyl nitrone
- TACE:
-
tumor necrosis factor alpha converting enzyme
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We thank Philipp Joss and Andreas Messerli for excellent technical support.
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This work was supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (32-61654.00 and 632-66057.01), the NIH (NS-35902), and the Meningitis Research Foundation (Grant 14/00).
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Leib, S., Heimgartner, C., Bifrare, YD. et al. Dexamethasone Aggravates Hippocampal Apoptosis and Learning Deficiency in Pneumococcal Meningitis in Infant Rats. Pediatr Res 54, 353–357 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1203/01.PDR.0000079185.67878.72
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/01.PDR.0000079185.67878.72
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