DELAYED ADMINISTRATION OF BASIC FIBROBLAST GROWTH-FACTOR (BFGF) ATTENUATES COGNITIVE DYSFUNCTION FOLLOWING PARASAGITTAL FLUID PERCUSSION BRAIN INJURY IN THE RAT

The present study evaluates the therapeutic effects of delayed adminis tration of bFGF on cognitive dysfunction and histopathological damage following lateral fluid-percussion (FP) brain injury, Male Sprague-Daw ley rats were trained to learn a visuospatial task in a Morris Water M aze (MWM) paradigm and then were anesthetized and subjected to either FP brain injury of moderate severity (2.5-2.8 atm, n = 32) or surgery without brain injury (n = 10), Twenty-four hours postinjury, an infusi on cannula connected to a mini-osmotic pump was implanted into the are a of maximal cortical injury to continuously infuse either bFGF (2.0 g ) or vehicle for 7 days, Treatment with bFGF significantly attenuated posttraumatic memory dysfunction in the MWM at 8 days postinjury when compared to vehicle treatment (p < 0.05). The cortical lesion and sign ificant cell loss in the ipsilateral CA3 region of the hippocampus, pr oduced by FP injury, was not affected by bFGF treatment, However, immu nohistochemical evaluation of glial fibrillary acidic protein revealed a trend toward increased astrocytosis in the injured cortex of bFGF-t reated animals compared to vehicle-treated animals (p < 0.1). These re sults indicate that bFGF may be efficacious in attenuating cognitive d ysfunction associated with traumatic brain injury.