Neurofilament degradation is involved in laparotomy-induced cognitive dysfunction in aged rats

Excessive neuroinflammatory responses play important roles in the development of postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). Neurofilaments (NFs) were essential to the structure of axon and nerve conduction; and the abnormal degradation of NFs were always accompanied with degenerative diseases, which were also characterized by excessive neuroinflammatory responses in brain. However, it is still unclear whether the NFs were involved in the POCD. In this study, the LC-MS/MS method was used to explore the neuroinflammatory response and NFs of POCD in aged rats. Moreover, trichostatin A (TSA), an inflammation-related drug, was selected to test whether it could improve the surgery-induced cognitive dysfunction, inflammatory responses and NFs. Evident cognitive dysfunction, excessive microglia activation, neuroinflammatory responses and upregulated NFs in hippocampus were observed in the POCD group. TSA pretreatment could significantly mitigate these changes. The KEGG analysis revealed that nine pathways were enriched in the TSA + surgery group (versus the surgery group). Among them, two signaling pathways were closely related with the changes of NFs proteins. In conclusion, surgery could impair the cognitive function and aggravate neuroinflammation and NFs. The TSA could significantly improve these changes which might be related to the activation of the “focal adhesion” and “ECM-receptor interaction” pathways.