TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2021//
TI  - Transcranial laser therapy does not improve cognitive and post-traumatic stress disorder-related behavioral traits in rats exposed to repetitive low-level blast injury
JO  - Neurotrauma reports
A1  - Perez Garcia, Georgina
A1  - Perez, Gissel M.
A1  - Otero-Pagan, Alena
A1  - Abutarboush, Rania
A1  - Kawoos, Usmah
A1  - De Gasperi, Rita
A1  - Gama Sosa, Miguel A.
A1  - Pryor, Dylan
A1  - Hof, Patrick R.
A1  - Cook, David G.
A1  - Gandy, Sam
A1  - Ahlers, Stephen T.
A1  - Elder, Gregory A.
SP  - 548
EP  - 563
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 2689-288X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/neur.2021.0005
ID  - ref1
ER  -