@article{ref1,
title="Time course of blast-induced injury in the rat auditory cortex",
journal="PLoS one",
year="2018",
author="Kallakuri, Srinivasu and Pace, Edward and Lu, Huichao and Luo, Hao and Cavanaugh, John and Zhang, Jinsheng",
volume="13",
number="2",
pages="e0193389-e0193389",
abstract="Blast exposure is an increasingly significant health hazard and can have a range of debilitating effects, including auditory dysfunction and traumatic brain injury. To assist in the development of effective treatments, a greater understanding of the mechanisms of blast-induced auditory damage and dysfunction, especially in the central nervous system, is critical. To elucidate this area, we subjected rats to a unilateral blast exposure at 22 psi, measured their auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), and histologically processed their brains at 1 day, 1 month, and 3-month survival time points. The left and right auditory cortices was assessed for astrocytic reactivity and axonal degenerative changes using glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity and a silver impregnation technique, respectively. Although only unilateral hearing loss was induced, astrocytosis was bilaterally elevated at 1 month post-blast exposure compared to shams, and showed a positive trend of elevation at 3 months post-blast. Axonal degeneration, on the other hand, appeared to be more robust at 1 day and 3 months post-blast. Interestingly, while ABR threshold shifts recovered by the 1 and 3-month time-points, a positive correlation was observed between rats' astrocyte counts at 1 month post-blast and their threshold shifts at 1 day post-blast. Taken together, our findings suggest that central auditory damage may have occurred due to biomechanical forces from the blast shockwave, and that different indicators/types of damage may manifest over different timelines.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1932-6203",
doi="10.1371/journal.pone.0193389",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193389"
}