Diazepam treatment reduces inflammatory cells and mediators in the central nervous system of rats with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

Benzodiazepines are psychoactive drugs and some of them also affect immune cells. We here characterized the inflammatory and infiltrating immune cells in the central nervous system (CNS) during the acute phase of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in animals treated with Diazepam. Also, we evaluated the expression of Translocator Protein (18kDa) (TSPO), which is a biomarker of neuroinflammatory diseases. The results indicate that Diazepam exerts protective effects on EAE development, decreasing the incidence of the disease and reducing the number of inflammatory cells in CNS, with a concomitant decrease of TSPO levels in brain tissue and CNS inflammatory CD11b+ cells. [Display omitted] •In nonsick diazepam-treated EAE animals prevail non-activated microglia.•Nonsick diazepam-treated EAE rats present lower number of encephalitogenic T cells.•Sick EAE animals show higher levels of TSPO transcript in brain tissue than nonsick animals.•CD11b+ CD45hi cells are responsible for the high TSPO expression in sick EAE animals.