@article{ref1,
title="Transcranial laser therapy does not improve cognitive and post-traumatic stress disorder-related behavioral traits in rats exposed to repetitive low-level blast injury",
journal="Neurotrauma reports",
year="2021",
author="Perez Garcia, Georgina and Perez, Gissel M. and Otero-Pagan, Alena and Abutarboush, Rania and Kawoos, Usmah and De Gasperi, Rita and Gama Sosa, Miguel A. and Pryor, Dylan and Hof, Patrick R. and Cook, David G. and Gandy, Sam and Ahlers, Stephen T. and Elder, Gregory A.",
volume="2",
number="1",
pages="548-563",
abstract="Many military veterans who experienced blast-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from chronic cognitive and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Transcranial laser therapy (TLT) uses low-power lasers emitting light in the far- to near-infrared ranges. Beneficial effects of TLT have been reported in neurological and mental-health-related disorders in humans and animal models, including TBI. Rats exposed to repetitive low-level blast develop chronic cognitive and PTSD-related behavioral traits. We tested whether TLT treatment could reverse these traits. Rats received a 74.5-kPa blast or sham exposures delivered one per day for 3 consecutive days. Beginning at 34 weeks after blast exposure, the following groups of rats were treated with active or sham TLT: 1) Sham-exposed rats (n = 12) were treated with sham TLT; 2) blast-exposed rats (n = 13) were treated with sham TLT; and 3) blast-exposed rats (n = 14) were treated with active TLT. Rats received 5 min of TLT five times per week for 6 weeks (wavelength, 808 nm; power of irradiance, 240 mW). At the end of treatment, rats were tested in tasks found previously to be most informative (novel object recognition, novel object localization, contextual/cued fear conditioning, elevated zero maze, and light/dark emergence). TLT did not improve blast-related effects in any of these tests, and blast-exposed rats were worse after TLT in some anxiety-related measures. Based on these findings, TLT does not appear to be a promising treatment for the chronic cognitive and mental health problems that follow blast injury.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2689-288X",
doi="10.1089/neur.2021.0005",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/neur.2021.0005"
}