Inflammatory consequences in a rodent model of mild traumatic brain injury.
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), particularly mild "blast type" injuries resulting from improvised exploding devices and many sport-caused injuries to the brain, result in long-term impairment of cognition and behavior. Our central hypothesis is that there are inflammatory consequences to mTBI that persist over time and, in part, are responsible for resultant pathogenesis and clinical outcomes. We used an adaptation (1 atmosphere pressure) of a well-characterized moderate-to-severe brain lateral fluid percussion (LFP) brain injury rat model. Our mild LFP injury resulted in acute increases in interleukin-1α/β and tumor necrosis factor alpha levels, macrophage/microglial and astrocytic activation, evidence of heightened cellular stress, and blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction that were evident as early as 3-6 h postinjury. Both glial activation and BBB dysfunction persisted for 18 days postinjury.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77225, USA. regino.perez-polo@utmb.edu
J Regino
JR
Perez-Polo
Harriet C
HC
Rea
Kathia M
KM
Johnson
Margaret A
MA
Parsley
Geda C
GC
Unabia
Guojing
G
Xu
Smitha K
SK
Infante
Douglas S
DS
Dewitt
Claire E
CE
Hulsebosch
D000818:Animals; D001812:Blood-Brain Barrier / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D001924:Brain Concussion / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000032:analysis / Q000096:biosynthesis; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D007118:Immunoassay; D007249:Inflammation / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
D016207:Cytokines