{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T05:19:06Z","timestamp":1787635146979,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"16","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,21]],"date-time":"2026-08-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787270400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000005","name":"United States Department of Defense","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["W81XWH1910522"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["W81XWH1910522"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000005","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["W81XWH1910522"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["W81XWH1910522"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0447fe631","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Int. J. Mol. Sci.","IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Blast-induced traumatic brain injury is a prevalent and underreported condition, particularly among military service members, for whom effective prophylactic interventions are lacking. Nano-pulsed laser therapy (NPLT) is a non-invasive neuromodulatory approach that delivers short pulses of near-infrared light to generate optoacoustic effects within cerebral tissue and has previously demonstrated therapeutic benefit following TBI. In this study, we evaluated whether a single pre-exposure application of NPLT could confer protection against neurological, cognitive, and cellular sequelae of mild blast injury. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to receive NPLT or Sham treatment 24 h prior to either Sham or mild blast exposure using the Advanced Blast Simulator. Neurological reflexes and vestibulomotor function were assessed on post-injury days (PIDs) 1\u20135, while cognitive performance was evaluated using the Morris Water Maze on PIDs 13\u201317. Histological analyses of microglia, astrocytes, and myelination were performed on PID 17. A single mild blast did not significantly alter gross neurological function but was associated with deficits in fine motor coordination and cognitive performance. Pre-exposure NPLT modestly attenuated blast-associated fine motor dysfunction, with a significant improvement compared with TBI on PID 4. In the Morris Water Maze, TBI animals exhibited significantly increased latency compared with Sham on PIDs 13 and 17, whereas NPLT + TBI animals did not significantly differ from Sham across the testing period, consistent with preservation of cognitive performance. Histological responses were regionally heterogeneous: NPLT alone produced distinct glial alterations, while NPLT + TBI animals exhibited a mixture of treatment- and injury-associated responses rather than uniform normalization to uninjured controls. NPLT did not prevent localized blast-associated reductions in corpus callosum myelin staining. In naive animals, NPLT significantly increased hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) mRNA expression 24 h after treatment. A single pre-injury application of NPLT was associated with functional resilience following mild blast exposure despite persistent and regionally heterogeneous histopathological alterations. Increased hippocampal BDNF 24 h after NPLT, together with region-specific glial changes following NPLT in the absence of injury, demonstrates that a single treatment produces sustained molecular and cellular effects before blast exposure. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that prophylactic NPLT establishes an altered pre-injury biological state that may modify the subsequent response to blast and support further investigation of NPLT as a prophylactic strategy and of the mechanisms underlying NPLT-associated preconditioning.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms27167505","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,21]],"date-time":"2026-08-21T15:51:05Z","timestamp":1787327465000},"page":"7505","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Single-Exposure Prophylactic Transcranial Nano-Pulsed Laser Therapy Promotes Functional Resilience Following Mild Blast-Induced Neurotrauma"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Nikita","family":"Gupta","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9411-6594","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Katherine N.","family":"Sheffield","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"},{"name":"John Sealy School of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mohammadhossein","family":"Khanmirzaei","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Auston C.","family":"Grant","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jutatip","family":"Guptarak","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ian J.","family":"Bolding","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kathia M.","family":"Johnson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rinat O.","family":"Esenaliev","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neurobiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7994-532X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Donald S.","family":"Prough","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6689-2994","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Maria-Adelaide","family":"Micci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"},{"name":"Moody Brain Health Institute, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.15585\/mmwr.ss6609a1","article-title":"Traumatic Brain Injury\u2013Related Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths\u2014United States, 2007 and 2013","volume":"66","author":"Taylor","year":"2017","journal-title":"MMWR Surveill. 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