IMPACT OF AGING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEUROIMMUNE DEFICIENCIES AFTER EXPERIMENTAL MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI)

Patient’s age affects the course of posttraumatic inflammation and recovery after TBI. The goal of the research was to identify the differences in neuroimmune deficiencies in young and old animals after experimental TBI. The research was carried out using male Wistar rats aged 3 and 18 months. Mild TBI was caused by weight drop TBI model. A group of animals was injected abdominally with 30 mkg/kg recombinant human interleukin-2 (Ronkoleukin, Biotech) daily for three days, starting 72 hours after TBI. The control group consisted of intact animals and rats who did not receive rIL-2 prior to TBI (n = 5 for both groups). The results obtained have shown that old animals after mild TBI had different testosterone and proliferative activity levels than the young ones; the injection of rIL-2 led to an increase in neurotrophic factors (testosterone and BDNF) without causing additional activation of lymphocytes.