title: Frontal Lobe Contusion in Mice Chronically Impairs Prefrontal-Dependent Behavior.
abstract: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of chronic disability in the world. Moderate to severe TBI often results in damage to the frontal lobe region and leads to cognitive, emotional, and social behavioral sequelae that negatively affect quality of life. More specifically, TBI patients often develop persistent deficits in social behavior, anxiety, and executive functions such as attention, mental flexibility, and task switching. These deficits are intrinsically associated with prefrontal cortex (PFC) functionality. Currently, there is a lack of analogous, behaviorally characterized TBI models for investigating frontal lobe injuries despite the prevalence of focal contusions to the frontal lobe in TBI patients. We used the controlled cortical impact (CCI) model in mice to generate a frontal lobe contusion and studied behavioral changes associated with PFC function. We found that unilateral frontal lobe contusion in mice produced long-term impairments to social recognition and reversal learning while having only a minor effect on anxiety and completely sparing rule shifting and hippocampal-dependent behavior.
authors.affiliation: Brain and Spinal Injury Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Department of Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Austin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chou
authors.affiliation: Brain and Spinal Injury Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Department of Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Josh M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Morganti
authors.affiliation: Brain and Spinal Injury Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Department of Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rosi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000293:injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012919:Social Behavior