A Novel Histological Technique to Assess Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents: Comparisons to Neuroimaging and Neurological Outcomes.

Dmitry Frank,Benjamin F. Gruenbaum,Matthew Boyko,Vladislav Zvenigorodsky,Alexander Zlotnik,Ilan Shelef,Ron Gal,Olha Shapoval,Yair Benjamin,Israel Melamed

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.733115

Abstract

Here we evaluate an alternative protocol to histologically examine blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown, brain edema, and lesion volume following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the same set of rodent brain samples. We further compare this novel histological technique to measurements determined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a neurological severity score (NSS). Sixty-six rats were randomly assigned to a sham-operated, mild TBI, moderate TBI, or severe TBI group. 48 h after TBI, NSS, MRI and histological techniques were performed to measure TBI severity outcome. Both the histological and MRI techniques were able to detect measurements of severity outcome, but histologically determined outcomes were more sensitive. The two most sensitive techniques for determining the degree of injury following TBI were NSS and histologically determined BBB breakdown. Our results demonstrate that BBB breakdown, brain edema, and lesion volume following TBI can be accurately measured by histological evaluation of the same set of brain samples.

Highlights

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability in children and young adults (Krug et al, 2000) and has become a critical public health and socio-economic problem globally (Roozenbeek et al, 2013)
We applied an alternative method to histologically examine blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown, brain edema, and lesion volume following TBI in the same set of brain samples. We compared this histological technique to Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings and neurological severity outcome following TBI
Our results demonstrate that these parameters of post-TBI neurological injury, BBB breakdown, brain edema and lesion volume, can accurately be measured in the same set of brain samples

Summary

Introduction

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability in children and young adults (Krug et al, 2000) and has become a critical public health and socio-economic problem globally (Roozenbeek et al, 2013). Traumatic brain injury accounts for one quarter to one third of all accidental deaths, and approximately two thirds of trauma-related deaths in hospitals (Bruns Jr and Hauser, 2003; Corrigan et al, 2010). Many survivors, even those with only minor injuries, suffer from lifelong disability which leads to considerable demands on health services (Langlois and Sattin, 2005). Histological, neuroimaging, behavioral and neurological assessments are the most common techniques used in evaluating TBI in rodent models (Bodnar et al, 2019)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion