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Background and Purpose: All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is a vitamin A metabolite, important in the developing and mature brain. Pre-injury ATRA administration ameliorates ischaemic brain insults in rodents. This study examined the effects of posttraumatic ATRA treatment in experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI). Experimental Approach: Male adult mice were subjected to the controlled cortical impact model of TBI or sham procedure and killed at 7 or 30 days post-injury (dpi). ATRA (10 mg kg−1, i.p.) was given immediately after the injury and 1, 2 and 3 dpi. Neurological function and sensorimotor coordination were evaluated. Brains were processed for (immuno-) histological, mRNA and protein analyses (qPCR and western blot). Key Results: ATRA treatment reduced brain lesion size, reactive astrogliosis and axonal injury at 7 dpi, and hippocampal granule cell layer (GCL) integrity was protected at 7 and 30 dpi, independent of cell proliferation in neurogenic niches and bloodbrain barrier damage. Neurological and motor deficits over time and the brain tissue loss at 30 dpi were not affected by ATRA treatment. ATRA decreased gene expression of markers for damage-associated molecular pattern (HMGB1), apoptosis (caspase-3 and Bax), activated microglia (TSPO), and reactive astrogliosis (GFAP, SerpinA3N) at 7 dpi and a subset of markers at 30 dpi (TSPO, GFAP). Conclusion and Implications: In experimental TBI, post-traumatic ATRA administration exerted brain protective effects, including long-term protection of GCL integrity, but did not affect neurological and motor deficits. Further investigations are required to optimize treatment regimens to enhance ATRA's brain protective effects and improve outcomes.

Abstract. In this paper, we present a study on collaborative capability of teams in three network organizations in Austria and Switzerland. So far, collaborative capability was mostly conceptualized on organizational or individual level as a set of attributes that actors employ to collaborate successfully. We found that this view of collaborative capability has to be enlarged. Collaborative capability of teams is characterized by at least two components: an attribute-based perspective that focuses on capabilities of single actors or organizations, and a perspective on group dynamics, that describes how teams develop collaborative capability. We discuss our findings with regard to the different organizational settings of the networks analyzed and the current literature on collaborative capability and network organizations.