NPLT-induced resilience of neural stem cells against tau oligomers

Nano-pulsed laser therapy (NPLT) is a noninvasive photobiomodulation therapy employing pulsed 808-nm optoacoustic laser irradiation. We have previously shown that, in two rat models of TBI, NPLT reduces neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, normalizes neurogenesis, and improves neurocognitive outcomes. Maintaining adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) is correlated with cognitive resilience against Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology. Loss of AHN has been shown to precede the deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles in animal models of AD and occurs early in the progression of human AD, implying that the prefibrillar soluble oligomers of Aβ and tau contribute to this decline. We have shown that NPLT-treated neural stem cells (NSC) differentiate in vitro into neurons resilient to Aβ oligomer toxicity and enriched in autophagy-related genes. Here we investigated the effects of tau oligomer (TauO) exposure on NPLT-treated NSC proliferation and differentiation in vitro and in vivo.