Effect of anesthetics on microglial activation and nanoparticle uptake: Implications for drug delivery in traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health problem, often with devastating consequences for patients and their families. Affordable and timely therapies can have a substantial impact on outcomes in severe TBI. Despite the common use of sedatives and anesthetics in the acute phase of TBI management, their effect on glial cells is not well understood. We investigated the effect of a commonly used sedative, pentobarbital, on glial cells and their uptake of nanoparticles. First, we studied how pentobarbital affects BV2 mouse microglial cells in culture. The cell morphology was imaged by confocal microscopy and analyzed. Our results suggest that microglia change to a more swollen, ‘activated’ shape with pentobarbital (cell area increased by approximately 20%, p