Repetitive Mild Closed Head Injury in Adolescent Mice Is Associated with Impaired Proteostasis, Neuroinflammation, and Tauopathy

Repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in children and adolescents leads to acute and chronic neurologic sequelae and is linked to later life neurodegenerative disease. However, the biological mechanisms connecting early life mTBI to neurodegeneration remain unknown. Using an adolescent mouse repetitive closed head injury model that induces progressive cognitive impairment in males and anxiety in females in the absence of overt histopathology, we examined transcriptional and translational changes in neurons isolated from sham and injured brain in the chronic phase after injury. At 14 months, single-nuclei RNA sequencing of cortical brain tissue identified disruption of genes associated with neuronal proteostasis and evidence for disrupted ligand-receptor signaling networks in injured mice. Western blot analysis of isolated neurons showed evidence of inflammasome activation and downstream IL-1 beta processing, as previously demonstrated in acute CNS injury models, and accumulation of misfolded, hyperphosphorylated tau, and changes in expression of proteins suggestive of impaired translation in males but not in females. At 6 months, injured IL-1 receptor 1 (IL-IRI) KO mice, which are protected from postinjury cognitive deficits, had decreased accumulation of pro-IL-1 beta and misfolded tau in cortex and cerebellum, suggesting that IL-1R1 is upstream of inflammasome priming (defined as increase in pro-IL-1 beta) and abnormal tau phosphorylation. Together, our findings provide evidence for neuronal inflammasome activation and impaired proteostasis as key mechanisms linking repetitive mTBI in adolescence to later life neurologic dysfunction and neurodegeneration.