TREATING HIPPOCAMPAL NEURAL STEM CELLS WITH NANO-PULSED LASER THERAPY GENERATES NEURONS RESILIENT AGAINST Aβ OLIGOMER TOXICITY

Hippocampal synaptic dysfunction driven by toxic amyloid-β oligomers (AβO) is an early event in the progression of neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in AD. Non-invasive therapies such as photobiomodulation (PBM) are receiving increased attention in AD research due to the accessibility and relative safety compared to novel drug trials, and have been shown to induce synaptic resilience in animal models of AD.

Nano-pulsed laser therapy (NPLT) is a type of PBM therapy using pulsed 808nm near-infrared laser light and optoacoustically generated ultrasound waves to stimulate deeper brain structures than would be accessible by traditional PBM therapy. Here we use NPLT to stimulate adult hippocampal neural stem cells (NSC) and differentiate them in vitro to assess resilience of the mature neurons against AβO toxicity. We found that neurons differentiated from NPLT-treated NSC are resilient against AβO binding and mitochondrial toxicity, and show increased expression of genes associated with autophagy and proteostasis.