Experimental neurology
-
Experimental neurology · Jan 2007
Late effects of enriched environment (EE) plus multimodal early onset stimulation (MEOS) after traumatic brain injury in rats: Ongoing improvement of neuromotor function despite sustained volume of the CNS lesion.
Recently we showed that the combination between MEOS and EE applied to rats for 7-15 days after traumatic brain injury (TBI) was associated with reduced CNS lesion volume and enhanced reversal of neuromotor dysfunction. In a continuation of this work, we tested whether these effects persisted for longer post-operative periods, e.g. 30 days post-injury (dpi). Rats were subjected to lateral fluid percussion (LFP) or to sham injury. ⋯ We found (i) no differences in the vibrissal motor performance; (ii) EE+MEOS rats performed significantly better than SH rats in NS; (iii) EE-only and EE+MEOS animals, but not SH rats, showed better recovery at 30 dpi than at 15 dpi; (iv) no differences among all groups in CLV (larger than that at 15 dpi) and CLV-RAP, despite a clear tendency to reduction in the EE-only and EE+MEOS rats. We conclude that EE+MEOS retards, but cannot prevent the increase of lesion volume. This retardation is sufficient for a continuous restoration of neurological functions.