Differential effects of duration and age on the consequences of neuroinflammation in the hippocampus

The current study investigated the hypothesis that the duration of the proinflammatory environment plays a critical role in the brain's response that results in negative consequences on cognition, biochemistry, and pathology. Lipopolysaccharide or artificial cerebrospinal fluid was slowly (250 ηg/h) infused into the fourth ventricle of young (3-month-old), adult (9-month-old), or aged (23-month-old) male F-344 rats for 21 or 56 days. The rats were then tested in the water pool task and endogenous hippocampal levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory proteins and genes and indicators of glutamatergic function were determined. The duration of the lipopolysaccharide infusion, compared with the age of the rat, had the greatest effect on (1) spatial working memory; (2) the density and distribution of activated microglia within the hippocampus; and (3) the cytokine protein and gene expression profiles within the hippocampus. The duration- and age-dependent consequences of neuroinflammation might explain why human adults respond positively to anti-inflammatory therapies and aged humans do not.