Citation

Olsen CM, Herrold AA, Conti AC, Vonder Haar C. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 2022; 16: e1010395.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fnbeh.2022.1010395

PMID

36160681

PMCID

PMC9490366

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability for all age groups in the United States and across the globe (Johnson and Griswold, 2017; Maas et al., 2017). TBI patients often experience significant and persistent impairments in cognitive and emotional function that decrease quality of life. This special issue addresses these TBI-associated behavioral changes with a series of manuscripts that leverage rodent models of brain injury and clinical work to improve translation of preclinical studies and rehabilitation of TBI patients.

Several studies in this issue report behavioral impairments following repeated TBI. Baskin et al. found that three blast injuries (24 h apart) increased motivation to obtain sucrose pellets in male mice, which was also associated with increased compulsive or perseverative responding and impaired cognitive flexibility 1-2 months post-injury. Repeated blast injury also led to aberrant emotional behavior in rats, as reported by Dickerson et al. When male rats sustained three blast injuries that were separated by 1 h each, anxiety-like behavior was elevated 2- and 52-weeks post-injury. Deficits in social behavior also occurred at 36 weeks post-injury. These behavioral deficits were correlated with changes in astrocyte and neuronal pathology in the motor cortex and regions of the hippocampus. Using a repeated rotational injury model, Stemper et al. examined the cumulative effects of multiple subconcussive rotational injuries (scaled from studies of contact sport athletes) and found that circulating neurofilament light (NFL) served as a dose-dependent biomarker of injury, while only the highest exposure led to behavioral disturbances and glial pathology in the amygdala.

Several studies also identified variable or discrepant behavioral outcomes after TBI. Using a repeated closed-head injury model...

Language: en

Keywords

traumatic brain injury; behavior; blast TBI; closed head injury; lateral fluid percussion injury; rotational injury