Citation

Tucker LT, Burke JF, Fu AH, McCabe JT. J. Neurotrauma 2016; 34(4): 890-905.

Affiliation

Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Pre-Clinical Studies Core, Bethesda, Maryland, United States ; Joseph.McCabe@usuhs.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2016.4508

PMID

27149139

Abstract

Psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety and depression are frequent and persistent complaints following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Modeling these symptoms in animal models of TBI afford the opportunity to determine mechanisms underlying behavioral pathologies and test potential therapeutic agents. However, testing these symptoms in animal models of TBI has yielded inconsistent results. The goal of the current study was to employ a battery of tests to measure multiple anxiety- and depressive-like symptoms following TBI in C57BL/6J mice, and to determine if male and female mice are differentially affected by the injury. Following controlled cortical impact (CCI) at a parietal location, neither male nor female mice showed depressive-like symptoms as measured by the Porsolt forced-swim test and sucrose preference test.

CONCLUSIONS regarding anxiety-like behaviors were dependent on the assay employed; CCI-induced thigmotaxis in the open field suggested an anxiogenic effect of the injury, but results from the elevated zero maze, light-dark box and marble-burying test indicate that CCI reduces anxiety-like behaviors. Lower anxiety-like behaviors were also associated with the female sex. Increased levels of activity were also measured in female mice and injured mice in these tests, and conclusions regarding anxiety should be taken with caution when experimental manipulations induce changes in baseline activity. These results underscore the irreconcilability of results from studies attempting to model TBI-induced neuropsychiatric symptoms. Changes in injury models or better attempts to replicate the clinical syndrome may improve the translational applicability of rodent models of TBI-induced anxiety and depression.

Language: en