Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2014
Old dog, new tricks: the attentional set-shifting test as a novel cognitive behavioral task after controlled cortical impact injury.
Cognitive impairment associated with prefrontal cortical dysfunction is a major component of disability in traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivors. Specifically, deficits of cognitive flexibility and attentional set-shifting are present across all levels of injury severity. Though alterations in spatial learning have been extensively described in experimental models of TBI, studies investigating more complex cognitive deficits are relatively scarce. ⋯ Further, injury severity-induced deficits in ED set-shifting and stimulus reversals, as well as increases in total response error rates and total set loss errors, were observed. These novel findings demonstrate executive function and behavioral flexibility deficits in our animal model of CCI injury and provide the impetus to integrate the AST in the standard neurotrauma behavioral battery to further evaluate cognitive dysfunction after TBI. Ongoing experiments in our laboratory are assessing AST performance after pharmacological and rehabilitative therapies post-TBI, as well as elucidating possible mechanisms underlying the observed neuropsychological deficits.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2014
Environmental enrichment as a viable neurorehabilitation strategy for experimental traumatic brain injury.
Environmental enrichment (EE) emerged as a robust independent variable capable of influencing behavioral outcome in experimental studies after the fortuitous observation by renowned neuropsychologist Donald O. Hebb that rats raised as pets in his home performed markedly better on problem-solving tasks than those kept in the laboratory. In the subsequent years, numerous studies ensued demonstrating that EE was also capable of inducing neuroplasticity in normal (i.e., noninjured) rats. ⋯ Further, the enhancements are observed in male and female as well as adult and pediatric rats and mice. Taken together, these cumulative findings provide strong support for EE as a generalized and robust preclinical model of neurorehabilitation. However, to further enhance the model and to more accurately mimic the clinic, future studies should continue to evaluate EE during more rehabilitation-relevant conditions, such as delayed and shorter time periods, as well as in combination with other therapeutic approaches, as we have been doing for the past few years.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2014
Gait Analysis at Multiple Speeds Reveals Differential Functional and Structural Outcomes in Response to Graded Spinal Cord Injury.
Open-field behavioral scoring is widely used to assess spinal cord injury (SCI) outcomes, but has limited usefulness in describing subtle changes important for posture and locomotion. Additional quantitative methods are needed to increase the resolution of locomotor outcome assessment. This study used gait analysis at multiple speeds (GAMS) across a range of mild-to-severe intensities of thoracic SCI in the rat. ⋯ Alterations in posture and coordination were correlated to impact severity. GAMS results correlated highly with functional and histological measures and revealed differential relationships between sets of GAMS dynamics and cord total volume loss versus epicenter myelin loss. Automated gait analysis at multiple speeds is therefore a useful tool for quantifying nuanced changes in gait as an extension of histological and observational methods in assessing SCI outcomes.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2014
Progesterone reduces secondary damage, preserves white matter and improves locomotor outcome after spinal cord contusion.
Progesterone is an anti-inflammatory and promyelinating agent after spinal cord injury, but its effectiveness on functional recovery is still controversial. In the current study, we tested the effects of chronic progesterone administration on tissue preservation and functional recovery in a clinically relevant model of spinal cord lesion (thoracic contusion). ⋯ Further, progesterone treatment significantly improved motor outcome as assessed using the Basso-Bresnahan-Beattie scale for locomotion and CatWalk gait analysis. These data suggest that progesterone could be considered a promising therapeutical candidate for spinal cord injury.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2014
ReviewAmbulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring in Spinal Cord Injury: Clinical Practicability.
Trauma to the spinal cord often results not only in sensorimotor but also autonomic impairments. The loss of autonomic control over the cardiovascular system can cause profound blood pressure (BP) derangements in subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI) and may therefore lead to increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in this population. The use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) allows insights into circadian BP profiles, which have been shown to be of good prognostic value for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in able-bodied subjects. ⋯ In addition, several maladaptive anatomical changes within the spinal cord and the periphery, as well as the general decrease of physical daily activity in SCI subjects, account for adverse BP changes. ABPM enables the identification of adverse BP profiles and the associated increased risk for CVD in SCI subjects. Concurrently, it also might provide a useful clinical tool to monitor improvements of AD and lost nocturnal dip after appropriate treatments in the SCI population.