Citation

Shear DA, Lu XC, Pedersen R, Wei G, Chen Z, Davis A, Yao C, Dave JR, Tortella FC. J. Neurotrauma 2011; 28(10): 2185-2195.

Affiliation

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Brain Trauma Neuroprotection and Neurorestoration, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience,, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States; deborah.a.shear@us.army.mil.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2011.1916

PMID

21644814

Abstract

This study evaluated the injury severity profile of unilateral, frontal penetrating ballistic-like brain injury (PBBI) on neurofunctional outcome, blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, and brain edema formation. The degree of injury severity was determined by the delivery of a water-pressure pulse designed to produce a temporary cavity by rapid (<40ms) expansion of the probe's elastic balloon calibrated to equal 5%, 10%, 12.5%, or 15% of total rat brain volume (control groups consisted of sham surgery or insertion of the probe only). Neurofunctional assessments revealed motor and cognitive deficits related to the degree of injury severity with the most clear-cut profile of PBBI injury severity depicted by the Morris water maze results. A biphasic pattern of BBB leakage was detected in the injured hemisphere at all injury severity levels at 4h post, and again at 48h - 72h post-injury, which remained evident out to 7d post-PBBI in the 10% and 12.5% PBBI groups. Likewise, significant brain edema was detected in the injured hemisphere by 4h post-injury and remained elevated out to 7 days post-injury in 10% and 12.5% PBBI. However, following 5% PBBI significant levels of edema were only detected from 24h - 48h post-injury. These results identify an injury severity profile of BBB permeability, brain edema, and neurofunctional impairment providing sensitive and clinically-relevant outcome metrics for studying potential therapeutics.

Language: en