Neural Regen Res
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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) at a young age can lead to the development of long-term functional impairments. Severity of injury is well demonstrated to have a strong influence on the extent of functional impairments; however, identification of specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers that are most reflective of injury severity and functional prognosis remain elusive. Therefore, the objective of this study was to utilize advanced statistical approaches to identify clinically relevant MRI biomarkers and predict functional outcomes using MRI metrics in a translational large animal piglet TBI model. ⋯ We found that both lesion size and midline shift are significantly correlated with decreases in stride and step length. These results from this study provide an important first step at identifying relevant MRI and functional biomarkers that are predictive of functional outcomes in a clinically relevant piglet TBI model. This study was approved by the University of Georgia Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (AUP: A2015 11-001) on December 22, 2015.