Effects of H + O Charged Particle Irradiation on Short-Term Memory and Hippocampal Physiology in a Murine Model.

Radiation from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) poses a significant health risk for deep-space flight crews. GCR are unique in their extremely high-energy particles. With current spacecraft shielding technology, some of the predominant particles astronauts would be exposed to are H + O. Radiation has been shown to cause cognitive deficits in mice. The hippocampus plays a key role in memory and cognitive tasks; it receives information from the cortex, undergoes dendritic-dependent processing and then relays information back to the cortex. In this study, we investigated the effects of combined H + O irradiation on cognition and dendritic structures in the hippocampus of adult male mice three months postirradiation. Six-month-old male C57BL/6 mice were irradiated first with H (0.5 Gy, 150 MeV/n) and 1 h later with O (0.1 Gy, 600 MeV/n) at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (Upton, NY). Three months after irradiation, animals were tested for hippocampus-dependent cognitive performance using the Y-maze. Upon sacrifice, molecular and morphological assessments were performed on hippocampal tissues. During Y-maze testing, the irradiated mice failed to distinguish the novel arm, spending approximately the same amount of time in all three arms during the retention trial relative to sham-treated controls. Irradiated animals also showed changes in expression of glutamate receptor subunits and synaptic density-associated proteins. H + O radiation compromised dendritic morphology in the cornu ammonis 1 and dentate gyrus within the hippocampus. These data indicate cognitive injuries due to H + O at three months postirradiation.