Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Jun 1999
Severity of experimental brain injury on lactate and free fatty acid accumulation and Evans blue extravasation in the rat cortex and hippocampus.
Lactate and free fatty acids (FFAs) were extracted from the cortices and hippocampi of rats subjected to sham operation, or mild (1.25 atm) or moderate (2.0 atm) fluid percussion (FP) injury, and their total tissue concentrations were measured. The elevation of lactate in the injured left cortex (IC) and ipsilateral hippocampus (IH) was significantly greater in the moderate-injury than in the mild-injury group at most test times between 5 min and 48 h after injury. Levels of total FFAs were elevated in the IC and IH to a greater extent and for a longer period after injury in the moderate-injury (up to 48 h) than in the mild-injury group (up to 20 min). ⋯ The extravasation of Evans blue in the IC and IH from 3 to 6 h after injury was also the greatest in the moderate-injury group. The hippocampal CA3 neuronal cell loss, but not cortical lesion volume, also increased with the severity of injury. These findings suggest that certain neurochemical, physiological (blood-brain barrier permeability), and morphologic responses increase with the severity of FP brain injury, and such relationships are consistent with the increased behavioral deficits observed with the increase of severity of brain injury.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 1999
Behavioral responses of C57BL/6, FVB/N, and 129/SvEMS mouse strains to traumatic brain injury: implications for gene targeting approaches to neurotrauma.
Recent studies have suggested that mouse models of traumatic brain injury may be useful for evaluating the role of single gene products in brain trauma. In the present study, we report that three background strains (C57BL/6, FVB/N, and 129/SvEMS), commonly used in genetically altered mice, exhibit significantly different behavioral responses when subjected to sham surgery (n = 9 per group) or moderate controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury (n = 12 per group). Injured animals from all three strains showed delayed recovery of pedal withdrawal and righting reflexes compared to sham-operated controls. ⋯ Significant impairment of place learning in the Morris water maze and Barnes circular maze was observed at 7-10 days and 21-24 days after injury, respectively, in C57BL/6 mice when compared with sham controls. Sham-operated FVB/N and 129/SvEMS mice were unable to learn either task, and performance did not differ significantly from respective CCI injured animals. Our results suggest that background strain should be carefully considered with experiments involving genetically altered mice, especially when planning behavioral outcome measures after CNS injury.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 1999
Neuroprotective effects of basic fibroblast growth factor following spinal cord contusion injury in the rat.
Cytokines and neurotrophic factors have been implicated in the pathophysiology of injury to the central nervous system. While some cytokines are considered pro-inflammatory, other factors promote neuronal growth and survival. The present study investigated the neuroprotective effects of interleukins 1 (IL-1), 4 (IL-4), and 6 (IL-6), nerve growth factor (NGF), ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in a contusion model of spinal cord injury. ⋯ No significant differences were observed between animals receiving vehicle versus bFGF treatment commencing 3 h after injury. These data demonstrate that the continuous intramedullary infusion of bFGF initiated one hour after moderate contusion injury of the spinal cord significantly reduces the total zone of injury and the zone of partial preservation. These results support the further investigation and possible future clinical application of bFGF in the treatment of acute spinal cord contusion injury.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Apr 1999
Case ReportsCitalopram treatment of traumatic brain damage in a 6-year-old boy.
Traumatic brain damage may cause acute emotional symptoms such as uncontrolled crying, apathy, and sleep problems. Rehabilitation may be less effective in patients afflicted by these symptoms. Citalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), has a documented immediate and dramatic effect on pathological crying in stroke patients. The present case history of a 6-year-old boy with a traumatic right-sided hemorrhage in the basal ganglia indicates that early SSRI treatment has a dramatic effect on pathological crying and in addition may have a concomitant beneficial effect on motor paresis, sleep disturbance, and neurobehavioral problems.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Apr 1999
Effect of traumatic brain injury in mice deficient in intercellular adhesion molecule-1: assessment of histopathologic and functional outcome.
Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is an adhesion molecule of the immunoglobulin family expressed on endothelial cells that is upregulated in brain as part of the acute inflammatory response to traumatic brain injury (TBI). ICAM-1 mediates neurologic injury in experimental meningitis and stroke; however, its role in the pathogenesis of TBI is unknown. We hypothesized that mutant mice deficient in ICAM-1 (-/-) would have decreased neutrophil accumulation, diminished histologic injury, and improved functional neurologic outcome versus ICAM-1 +/+ wild type control mice after TBI. ⋯ Robust expression of ICAM-1 was readily detected in choroid plexus and cerebral endothelium at 24 h in ICAM-1 +/+ mice but not in ICAM-1 -/- mice. No differences between groups were observed in brain neutrophil accumulation (9.4 +/- 2.2 versus 11.1 +/- 3.0 per x100 field, -/- versus +/+), wire grip score, MWM latency, or lesion volume (7.24 +/- 0.63 versus 7.21 +/- 0.45 mm3, -/- versus +/+). These studies fail to support a role for ICAM-1 in the pathogenesis of TBI.