Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
College/Unit
School of Medicine
Department/Program/Center
Neurosurgery
Abstract
Direct or indirect exposure to an explosion can induce traumatic brain injury (TBI) of various severity levels. Primary TBI from blast exposure is commonly characterized by internal injuries, such as vascular damage, neuronal injury, and contusion, without external injuries. Current animal models of blast-induced TBI (bTBI) have helped to understand the deleterious effects of moderate to severe blast forces. However, the neurological effects of mild blast forces remain poorly characterized. Here, we investigated the effects caused by mild blast forces combining neuropathological, histological, biochemical and neurophysiological analysis. For this purpose, we employed a rodent blast TBI model with blast forces below the level that causes macroscopic neuropathological changes. We found that mild blast forces induced neuroinflammation in cerebral cortex, striatum and hippocampus. Moreover, mild blast triggered microvascular damage and axonal injury. Furthermore, mild blast caused deficits in hippocampal short-term plasticity and synaptic excitability, but no impairments in long-term potentiation. Finally, mild blast exposure induced proteolytic cleavage of spectrin and the cyclin-dependent kinase 5 activator, p35 in hippocampus. Together, these findings show that mild blast forces can cause aberrant neurological changes that critically impact neuronal functions. These results are consistent with the idea that mild blast forces may induce subclinical pathophysiological changes that may contribute to neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Digital Commons Citation
Hernandez, Adan; Tan, Chunfeng; Plattner, Florian; Logsdon, Aric F.; Pozo, Karine; Yousuf, Mohammad A.; Singh, Tanvir; Turner, Ryan C.; Luke-Wold, Brandon P.; Huber, Jason D.; Rosen, Charles L.; and Bibb, James A., "Exposure to mild blast forces induces neuropathological effects, neurophysiological deficits and biochemical changes" (2018). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1351.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1351
Source Citation
Hernandez, A., Tan, C., Plattner, F., Logsdon, A. F., Pozo, K., Yousuf, M. A., Singh, T., Turner, R. C., Luke-Wold, B. P., Huber, J. D., Rosen, C. L., & Bibb, J. A. (2018). Exposure to mild blast forces induces neuropathological effects, neurophysiological deficits and biochemical changes. Molecular Brain, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13041-018-0408-1
Included in
Medical Neurobiology Commons, Neurology Commons, Other Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Commons, Psychiatry and Psychology Commons
Comments
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.