• Elise C Cope, Deborah R Morris, Angus G Scrimgeour, and Cathy W Levenson.
• Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
• Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2012 Sep 1;26(7):907-13.

BackgroundWhile treatments for the behavioral deficits associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are currently limited, animal models suggest that zinc supplementation may increase resilience to TBI.ObjectiveThis work tests the hypothesis that zinc supplementation after TBI can be used as treatment to improve behavioral outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and learning and memory.MethodsTBI was induced by controlled cortical impact to the medial frontal cortex. After TBI, rats were fed either a zinc adequate (ZA, 30 ppm) or zinc supplemented (ZS, 180 ppm) diet. Additional rats in each dietary group (ZA or ZS) were given a single intraperitoneal (ip) injection of zinc (30 mg/kg) 1 hour following injury.ResultsBrain injury resulted in significant increases in anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors as well as impairments in learning and memory. None of the zinc treatments (dietary or ip zinc) improved TBI-induced anxiety. The 2-bottle saccharin preference test for anhedonia revealed that dietary ZS also did not improve depression-like behaviors. However, dietary ZS combined with an early ip zinc injection significantly reduced anhedonia (P < .001). Dietary supplementation after injury, but not zinc injection, significantly improved (P < .05) cognitive behavior as measured by the time spent finding the hidden platform in the Morris water maze test compared with injured rats fed a ZA diet.ConclusionsThese data suggest that zinc supplementation may be an effective treatment option for improving behavioral deficits such as cognitive impairment and depression following TBI.

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