pretreatment effect of photo-biomodulation through alterations of micrornas (21, 124a) in a rat model of ischemic stroke

Introduction: the developing and promising optogenetic stimulation method can aid functional recovery by carefully regulating neuronal activity in brain circuits damaged by a stroke lesion. this investigation assesses the potential pretreatment effects of optogenetic stimulation on an ischemic stroke animal model. methods: lentiviruses containing plenti-camkiia-hchr2 (h134r)-mcherry-wpre were administered to adult male wistar rats. it was injected into the right striatum for this purpose. twenty-six days after the virus injection, the animals were exposed to blue laser light for six days in a row for 30 minutes at a time. twenty-four hours after the final light stimulation, the transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tmcao) was done. one day after reperfusion, the neurological processes and the size of the brain infarcts in ischemic rats were evaluated. the transcript levels of micrornas 21 and 124a—epigenetic indicators for neuroprotection and neurogenesis—were also assessed in the striatum and hippocampus.results: our findings suggested that pretreatment with glutamatergic striatum optogenetic stimulation could reduce neurological impairments in rats and boost neuronal survival in both striatum and hippocampal regions. also, the expression of microrna-21 (mir-21) in the striatum was significantly increased in rats that had been optogenetically stimulated. additionally, mir-124a expression was elevated in both regions in rats given tmcao, and pretreatment with optical stimulations may considerably lower its expression in the hippocampus.conclusion: according to our findings, optogenetic stimulation pretreatment of the striatum positively affects stroke recovery. the effect is partially mediated by altering mirnas involved in neurogenesis and subsequently activating its downstream signaling cascade.