Intravenous adipose-derived stem cells transplantation ameliorates memory impairment in moderate traumatic brain injury rats via the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2

Preliminary studies showed transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) could actually ameliorate memory impairment in TBI and the mechanisms involved are still to be elucidated. The effect of ADSCs transplantation on memory impairment of rats after TBI were accessed by the Morris water maze (MWM) and the novel object recognition testing (NOR). ADSCs-transplanted rats showed more curiosity versus vehicle-treated control group in NOR. In MWM test, rats in vehicle-treated group required significantly longer time to found the hidden platform than those that were spent by rats in sham and ADSCs transplantation groups. Rats in ADSCs transplantation group had significantly longer latencies to cross the location of the previously hidden platform than rats in vehicle-treated group during the probe trial, and rats in these two groups show significant difference in the number of platform crossing. And expression levels of phosphorylated cAMP response element binding protein (pCREB) and phosphorylated ERK (pERK) in the hippocampus were increased indicated by western blot and immunohistochemical. In conclusion, intravenous ADSCs transplantation could efficiently ameliorate memory impairment in TBI rats. Meanwhile, the learning-associated ERK and CREB activity were predominantly enhanced in the hippocampus.