Valproic Acid Treatment Decreases Serum GFAP and UCH-L1 Level in Swine Subjected to Traumatic Brain Injury.

The primary aim of this study was to examine the effects of valproic acid (VPA) treatment on serum glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and neurofilament light chain (NF-L) levels. To achieve this aim, we obtained serum samples from: (1) ten Yorkshire swine subjected to controlled cortical impact (CCI) TBI + polytrauma and randomized to receive either normal saline (NS) + VPA (n=5) or NS alone (n=5) and (2) five additional swine subjected to CCI TBI without polytrauma and treated with VPA. GFAP and NF-L levels were measured in samples obtained from baseline until 10 days post-injury using a digital immunoassay from Quanterix Corporation. We found that elevated GFAP and NF-L levels were first detected at 2 hours post-injury; and peaked at 24 hours and 72 hours respectively. GFAP levels returned to baseline levels by day-10, while NF-L remained elevated at day-10. In TBI + polytrauma swine, the magnitude and duration of biomarker elevation, quantified by the area under the biomarker concentration versus t...