Microstructural and microglial changes after repetitive mild traumatic brain injury in mice.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health issue, with recently increased awareness of the potential long-term sequelae of repetitive injury. Although TBI is common, objective diagnostic tools with sound neurobiological predictors of outcome are lacking. Indeed, such tools could help to identify those at risk for more severe outcomes after repetitive injury and improve understanding of biological underpinnings to provide important mechanistic insights. We tested the hypothesis that acute and subacute pathological injury, including the microgliosis that results from repeated mild closed head injury (rmCHI), is reflected in susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion-tensor imaging microstructural abnormalities. Using a combination of high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging, stereology, and quantitative PCR, we studied the pathophysiology of male mice that sustained seven consecutive mild traumatic brain injuries over 9 days in acute (24 hr) and subacute (1 week) time periods. rmCHI induced focal cortical microhemorrhages and impaired axial diffusivity at 1 week postinjury. These microstructural abnormalities were associated with a significant increase in microglia. Notably, microgliosis was accompanied by a change in inflammatory microenvironment defined by robust spatiotemporal alterations in tumor necrosis factor-α receptor mRNA. Together these data contribute novel insight into the fundamental biological processes associated with repeated mild brain injury concomitant with subacute imaging abnormalities in a clinically relevant animal model of repeated mild TBI. These findings suggest new diagnostic techniques that can be used as biomarkers to guide the use of future protective or reparative interventions. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Gait and Quiet-Stance Performance Among Adolescents After Concussion-Symptom Resolution.

CONTEXT: Concussions affect a large number of US athletes each year. Returning an athlete to activity once self-reported symptoms have resolved can be problematic if unrecognized neurocognitive and balance deficits persist. Pairing cognitive and motor tasks or cognitive and quiet-stance tasks may allow clinicians to detect and monitor these changes postconcussion. OBJECTIVE: To prospectively examine adolescent athletes' gait and quiet-stance performance while concurrently completing a cognitive task acutely after concussion and after symptom resolution. DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Sport concussion clinic. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-seven athletes (age = 16.2 ± 3.1 years; 54% female) were diagnosed with a concussion, and their performance was compared with that of a group of 44 uninjured control participants (age = 15.0 ± 2.0 years; 57% female). INTERVENTION: Participants diagnosed with a concussion completed a symptom inventory and single- and dual-task gait and quiet-stance evaluations within 21 days of injury and then again after symptom resolution. Gait and postural-control measurements were quantified using an inertial sensor system and analyzed using multivariate analyses of covariance. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Post-Concussion Symptom Scale, single-task and dual-task gait measures, quiet-stance measures, and cognitive task performance. RESULTS: At the initial postinjury examination, single-task gait stride length (1.16 ± 0.14 versus 1.25 ± 0.13 m, P = .003) and dual-task gait stride length (1.02 ± 0.13 m versus 1.10 ± 0.13 m, P = .011) for the concussion group compared with the control group, respectively, were shorter. After symptom resolution, no single-task gait differences were found, but the concussion group demonstrated slower gait velocity (0.78 ± 0.15 m/s versus 0.92 ± 0.14 m/s, P = .005), lower cadence (92.5 ± 12.2 steps/min versus 99.3 ± 7.8 steps/min, P < .001), and a shorter stride length (0.99 ± 0.15 m versus 1.10 ± 0.13 m, P = .003) during dual-task gait than the control group. No between-groups differences were detected during quiet stance at either time point. CONCLUSIONS: Acutely after concussion, single-task and dual-task stride-length alterations were present among youth athletes compared with a control group. Although single-task gait alterations were not detected after symptom resolution, dual-task gait differences persisted, suggesting that dual-task gait alterations may persist longer after concussion than single-task gait or objective quiet-stance alterations. Dual-task gait assessments may, therefore, be a useful component in monitoring concussion recovery after symptom resolution.

Adolescent Mice Demonstrate a Distinct Pattern of Injury after Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Recently, there has been increasing interest in outcomes after repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (rmTBI) (e.g., sports concussions). Although most of the scientific attention has focused on elite athlete populations, the sequelae of rmTBI in children and young adults have not been well studied. Prior TBI studies have suggested that developmental differences in response to injury, including differences in excitotoxicity and inflammation, could result in differences in functional and histopathological outcomes after injury. The purpose of this study is to compare outcomes in adolescent (5-week-old) versus adult (4-month-old) mice in a clinically relevant model of rmTBI. We hypothesized that functional and histopathological outcomes after rmTBI would differ in developing adolescent brains compared with mature adult brains. Male adolescent and adult (C57Bl/6) mice were subjected to a weight drop model of rmTBI (n = 10-16/group). Loss of consciousness (LOC) after each injury was measured. Functional outcomes were assessed including tests of balance (rotorod), spatial memory (Morris water maze), and impulsivity (elevated plus maze). After behavioral testing, brains were assessed for histopathological outcomes including microglial immunolabeling and N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunit expression. Injured adolescent mice had longer LOC than injured adult mice compared with their respective sham controls. Compared with sham mice, adolescent and adult mice subjected to rmTBI had impaired balance, increased impulsivity, and worse spatial memory that persisted up to 3 months after injury, and the effect of injury was worse in adolescent than in adult mice in terms of spatial memory. Three months after injury, adolescent and adult mice demonstrated increased ionized calcium binding adaptor 1 (IbA1) immunolabeling compared with sham controls. Compared with sham controls, NMDA receptor subtype 2B (NR2B) expression in the hippocampus was reduced by ∼20% in both adolescent and adult injured mice. The data suggest that injured adolescent mice may show a distinct pattern of functional deficits after injury that warrants further mechanistic studies.

Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury in the Preclinical Setting.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and disability for people under 45 years of age. Clinical TBI is often the result of disparate forces resulting in heterogeneous injuries. Preclinical modeling of TBI is a vital tool for studying the complex cascade of metabolic, cellular, and molecular post-TBI events collectively termed secondary injury. Preclinical models also provide an important platform for studying therapeutic interventions. However, modeling TBI in the preclinical setting is challenging, and most models replicate only certain aspects of clinical TBI. This chapter details the most widely used models of preclinical TBI, including the controlled cortical impact, fluid percussion, blast, and closed head models. Each of these models replicates particular critical aspects of clinical TBI. Prior to selecting a preclinical TBI model, it is important to address what aspect of human TBI is being sought to evaluate.

Imaging and serum biomarkers reflecting the functional efficacy of extended erythropoietin treatment in rats following infantile traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and severe morbidity for otherwise healthy full-term infants around the world. Currently, the primary treatment for infant TBI is supportive, as no targeted therapies exist to actively promote recovery. The developing infant brain, in particular, has a unique response to injury and the potential for repair, both of which vary with maturation. Targeted interventions and objective measures of therapeutic efficacy are needed in this special population. The authors hypothesized that MRI and serum biomarkers can be used to quantify outcomes following infantile TBI in a preclinical rat model and that the potential efficacy of the neuro-reparative agent erythropoietin (EPO) in promoting recovery can be tested using these biomarkers as surrogates for functional outcomes. METHODS With institutional approval, a controlled cortical impact (CCI) was delivered to postnatal Day (P)12 rats of both sexes (76 rats). On postinjury Day (PID)1, the 49 CCI rats designated for chronic studies were randomized to EPO (3000 U/kg/dose, CCI-EPO, 24 rats) or vehicle (CCI-veh, 25 rats) administered intraperitoneally on PID1-4, 6, and 8. Acute injury (PID3) was evaluated with an immunoassay of injured cortex and serum, and chronic injury (PID13-28) was evaluated with digitized gait analyses, MRI, and serum immunoassay. The CCI-veh and CCI-EPO rats were compared with shams (49 rats) primarily using 2-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc correction. RESULTS Following CCI, there was 4.8% mortality and 55% of injured rats exhibited convulsions. Of the injured rats designated for chronic analyses, 8.1% developed leptomeningeal cyst-like lesions verified with MRI and were excluded from further study. On PID3, Western blot showed that EPO receptor expression was increased in the injured cortex (p = 0.008). These Western blots also showed elevated ipsilateral cortex calpain degradation products for αII-spectrin (αII-SDPs; p < 0.001), potassium chloride cotransporter 2 (KCC2-DPs; p = 0.037), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP-DPs; p = 0.002), as well as serum GFAP (serum GFAP-DPs; p = 0.001). In injured rats multiplex electrochemiluminescence analyses on PID3 revealed elevated serum tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα p = 0.01) and chemokine (CXC) ligand 1 (CXCL1). Chronically, that is, in PID13-16 CCI-veh rats, as compared with sham rats, gait deficits were demonstrated (p = 0.033) but then were reversed (p = 0.022) with EPO treatment. Diffusion tensor MRI of the ipsilateral and contralateral cortex and white matter in PID16-23 CCI-veh rats showed widespread injury and significant abnormalities of functional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD); MD, AD, and RD improved after EPO treatment. Chronically, P13-P28 CCI-veh rats also had elevated serum CXCL1 levels, which normalized in CCI-EPO rats. CONCLUSIONS Efficient translation of emerging neuro-reparative interventions dictates the use of age-appropriate preclinical models with human clinical trial-compatible biomarkers. In the present study, the authors showed that CCI produced chronic gait deficits in P12 rats that resolved with EPO treatment and that chronic imaging and serum biomarkers correlated with this improvement.

Sex differences in the effect of progesterone after controlled cortical impact in adolescent mice: a preliminary study.

OBJECT: While progesterone has been well studied in experimental models of adult traumatic brain injury (TBI), it has not been evaluated in pediatric models. The study of promising interventions in pediatric TBI is important because children have the highest public health burden of such injuries. Therapies that are beneficial in adults may not necessarily be effective in the pediatric population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether progesterone treatment improves outcomes in an experimental model of pediatric TBI. METHODS: The authors determined whether progesterone administered after controlled cortical impact (CCI) improves functional and histopathological outcomes in 4-week-old mice. Both male and female mice (58 mice total) were included in this study, as the majority of prior studies have used only male and/or reproductively senescent females. Mice were randomized to treatment with progesterone or vehicle and to CCI injury or sham injury. Motor (wire grip test) and memory (Morris water maze) testing were performed to determine the effect of progesterone on TBI. Lesion volume was also assessed. RESULTS: Compared with their vehicle-treated counterparts, the progesterone-treated CCI-injured male mice had improved motor performance (p < 0.001). In contrast, progesterone-treated CCI-injured female mice had a worse performance than their vehicle-treated counterparts (p = 0.001). Progesterone treatment had no effect on spatial memory performance or lesion volume in injured male or female mice. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest a sex-specific effect of progesterone treatment after CCI in adolescent mice and could inform clinical trials in children.

Chronic gliosis and behavioral deficits in mice following repetitive mild traumatic brain injury.

OBJECT: With the recent increasing interest in outcomes after repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (rmTBI; e.g., sports concussions), several models of rmTBI have been established. Characterizing these models in terms of behavioral and histopathological outcomes is vital to assess their clinical translatability. The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth behavioral and histopathological phenotype of a clinically relevant model of rmTBI. METHODS: The authors used a previously published weight-drop model of rmTBI (7 injuries in 9 days) in 2- to 3-month-old mice that produces cognitive deficits without persistent loss of consciousness, seizures, gross structural imaging findings, or microscopic evidence of structural brain damage. Injured and sham-injured (anesthesia only) mice were subjected to a battery of behavioral testing, including tests of balance (rotarod), spatial memory (Morris water maze), anxiety (open field plus maze), and exploratory behavior (hole-board test). After behavioral testing, brains were assessed for histopathological outcomes, including brain volume and microglial and astrocyte immunolabeling. RESULTS: Compared with sham-injured mice, mice subjected to rmTBI showed increased exploratory behavior and had impaired balance and worse spatial memory that persisted up to 3 months after injury. Long-term behavioral deficits were associated with chronic increased astrocytosis and microgliosis but no volume changes. CONCLUSIONS: The authors demonstrate that their rmTBI model results in a characteristic behavioral phenotype that correlates with the clinical syndrome of concussion and repetitive concussion. This model offers a platform from which to study therapeutic interventions for rmTBI.