MRI of Acute and Delayed Administration of Marrow Stromal Cells in Rats with Traumatic Brain Injury

Lian Li¹, Michael Chopp¹, ², Guangliang Ding¹, Changsheng Qu³, Qingjiang Li¹, Siamak P. Nejad-Davarani¹, Quan Jiang¹

While cell transplantation has potential as an effective therapeutic strategy to attenuate secondary injury after traumatic brain injury (TBI), several key issues regarding optimization of basic transplantation techniques, such as timing of transplantation, remain to be addressed. Using MRI, we tested the hypothesis that acute engraftment of human marrow stromal cells (hMSCs) into the brain subjected to TBI provides an advanced therapeutic effect as compared to delayed transplantation. Our data demonstrate that acute cell intervention extends the time range of therapeutic benefit by initiating the therapeutic effects earlier, resulting in an enhanced protective and therapeutic effect.