Abstract
Mild traumatic brain injury typically involves temporary impairment of neurological function. Previous studies used water pressure or rotational injury for designing the device to make a rat a mild traumatic brain injury model. The objective of this study was to make a simple model of causing mild traumatic brain injury in rats. The device consisted of a free-fall impactor that was targeted onto the rat skull. The weight (175 g) was freely dropped 30 cm to rat’s skull bregma. We installed a safety device made of acrylic panel. To confirm a mild traumatic brain injury in 36 Sprague-Dawley rats, we performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain within 24 h after injury. We evaluated behavior and chemical changes in rats before and after mild traumatic brain injury. The brain MRI did not show high or low signal intensity in 34 rats. The mobility on grid floor was decreased after mild traumatic brain injury. The absolute number of foot-fault and foot-fault ratio were decreased after mild traumatic brain injury. However, the difference of the ratio was a less than absolute number of foot-fault. These results show that the device is capable of reproducing mild traumatic brain injury in rats. Our device can reduce the potential to cause brain hemorrhage and reflect the mechanism of real mild traumatic brain injury compared with existing methods and behaviors. This model can be useful in exploring physiology and management of mild traumatic brain injury.
Highlights
A mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) or concussion is referred to as a closed head injury, which may be defined as a temporary disturbance in brain function that occurs in a complicated pathophysiological process
The problem is that a rat model is made through a very complicated process of anesthesia and surgery, such as craniotomy followed by the insertion of a plastic injury tube or single impact therapy or hydraulic induction of concussion (Sakurai et al, 2012; Redell et al, 2013; Dixon et al, 1987; Dixon et al, 1991)
This study aimed to introduce a new MTBI model that is similar to the damaging mechanism of MTBI
Summary
A mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) or concussion is referred to as a closed head injury, which may be defined as a temporary disturbance in brain function that occurs in a complicated pathophysiological process. A recent study focused on tailoring their rat models of MTBI by considering the characteristics of MTBI, namely high-velocity and head acceleration (Kane et al, 2012). Damaging mechanisms such as a shock to the head or surviving the impact from a fall cannot induce an MTBI alone. In the case of a method suggested by Tang et al (1997), including an MTBI was comparatively simple and it did not cause skull fractures. The safety inspection was focused on critical injuries such as a skull fracture or cerebral hemorrhage and stress that affected homeostasis
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