Simple tone discriminations are disrupted following experimental frontal traumatic brain injury in rats.
OBJECTIVE
To assess cognitive deficits in a rat model of brain injury.


METHODS
Cognitive deficits are some of the most pervasive and enduring symptoms of frontal traumatic brain injury (TBI) in human patients. In animal models, the assessment of cognitive deficits from TBI has primarily been limited to tests of spatial learning. Recently, simple discrimination performance has been shown to be sensitive to frontal brain damage. The current study provides a detailed characterization of deficits in a two-choice tone discrimination following a bilateral frontal controlled cortical impact injury.


METHODS
Rats were trained on a two-tone discrimination task in a standard operant chamber, then either a frontal brain injury was delivered or sham procedures performed. Following recovery, they were re-tested on the discrimination task and then tested on a reversal of the discrimination.


RESULTS
Frontal injury caused substantial deficits in responding and discrimination accuracy as well as an increase in side bias.


CONCLUSIONS
Based on the outcomes seen in this study, discrimination and other operant tasks may provide a sensitive tool to assess the effect of therapeutic agents on cognitive deficits in animal models, which could lead to improved characterization of deficits and yield an improved assessment tool to aid in drug discovery.
Restorative Neuroscience Laboratory and.
Cole
C
Vonder Haar
Travis R
TR
Smith
Eric J
EJ
French
Kris M
KM
Martens
Eric A
EA
Jacobs
Michael R
MR
Hoane
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000293:injuries* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006309:Hearing; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley