The impact of minocycline in inhibiting glial scar formation in rats with traumatic brain injury: A mini scoping review

Minocycline, a second-generation tetracycline derivative, is proven to inhibit glial scar formation in several neurological diseases. However, studies associating micocycline in traumatic brain injury (TBI) is very limited. This review aims to determine the role of minocycline in inhibiting glial scar or astrogliosis formation in TBI animal models. This scoping review includes original studies in PubMed, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases published between 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2022, in full text, involving rodent research, and written in English. Two authors who followed the Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines, conducted the assessment independently. Of 2687 studies, 13 studies are reviewed. Two studies describe the benefits of minocycline in inhibiting glial scar formation in TBI, while 11 studies show that minocycline inhibits glial scar formation in diseases other than TBI. An explanation of the signaling pathways and cells involved in the mechanism of glial scar inhibition by minocycline can be found in ten articles, of which four observe the role of microglial cells, four observe the role of astrocyte cells, and two do not explain the mechanism. Research on the impact of minocycline in inhibiting glial scar formation in rats with TBI is limited. The results of this review support early research on the role of minocycline in inhibiting glial scar or astrogliosis in TBI, and similar studies in several other CNS diseases support this. However, the mechanism of minocycline's inhibitory pathway to glial scarring remains unclear.