Objective

Growth hormone (GH) is widely known for its peripheral effects during growth and development. However, numerous reports also suggest that GH exert pro-cognitive, restorative, and protective properties in the brain. In in vitro studies, the detection of dendritic spines, small protrusions extending from axons, can act as a marker for cognition-related function as spine formation is considered to be associated with learning and memory. Here we show that an acute 24-hour treatment of GH can increase dendritic spine density in primary hippocampal cell cultures.

Design

Primary hippocampal cells were harvested from embryonic Wistar rats and cultured for 14 days. Cells were treated with supra-physiological doses of GH (10-1000 nM) and subjected to a high-throughput screening protocol. Images were acquired and analyzed using automated image analysis and the number of spines, spines per neurite length, neurite length, and mean area of spines, was reported.

Results

GH treatment (1000 nM) increased the number of dendritic spines by 83% and spines per neurite length by 82% when compared to control. For comparison BDNF, a known inducer of spine densities, produced statistically non-significant increase in this setting.

Conclusion

The results was found significant using the highest supra-physiological dose of GH, and the present study further confirms a potential role of the hormone in the treatment of cognitive dysfunction.

中文翻译：

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生长激素增加原代海马细胞培养物中的树突棘密度

目的

生长激素（GH）因其在生长和发育过程中的外围作用而广为人知。但是，许多报告还表明，GH在大脑中发挥着前认知，恢复性和保护性的作用。在体外研究中，由于树突棘被认为与学习和记忆有关，因此检测到树突棘，从轴突伸出的小突起可作为认知相关功能的标志物。在这里，我们显示了GH的24小时急性治疗可以增加原代海马细胞培养物中的树突棘密度。

设计

从胚胎Wistar大鼠中收获原代海马细胞并培养14天。用超生理剂量的GH（10-1000 nM）处理细胞，并进行高通量筛选。使用自动图像分析获取并分析图像，并报告棘的数量，每个神经突长度的棘，神经突长度和棘的平均面积。

结果

与对照组相比，GH处理（1000 nM）使树突棘的数目增加了83％，每个神经突长度的棘增加了82％。为了进行比较，BDNF（一种已知的脊柱密度诱导剂）在这种情况下产生了统计学上不显着的增加。

结论

使用最高的超生理剂量GH发现了显着的结果，并且本研究进一步证实了该激素在治疗认知功能障碍中的潜在作用。