Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Apr 2024
Neurobehavioral abnormalities in offspring of young adult male rats with a history of traumatic brain injury.
Children of parents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are more likely to develop psychiatric disorders. This association is usually attributed to TBI-induced changes in parents' personality and families' social environment. We tested the hypothesis that offspring of young adult male rats with TBI develop neurodevelopmental abnormalities in the absence of direct social contact with sires. ⋯ F1 male offspring of TBI sires exhibited abnormalities in all behavioral tests, while their F1 female counterparts had abnormal pre-pulse inhibition responses only. F1 male offspring of TBI sires also had reduced mRNA levels of hippocampal Nr3c1 and Nr3c2, as well as hypothalamic and hippocampal Bdnf, whereas increases in inflammatory markers were more profound in F1 females. These findings suggest that offspring of sires with a history of a moderate TBI that involved craniectomy under SEVO anesthesia for 40 min, develop sex-dependent neurobehavioral abnormalities in the absence of direct social interaction between the sire and the offspring.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Mar 2024
ReviewThe Australian Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative: systematic review of predictive value of biological markers for people with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury.
The Australian Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (AUS-TBI) aims to co-design a data resource to predict outcomes for people with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) across Australia. Fundamental to this resource is the data dictionary, which is an ontology of data items. Here, we report the systematic review and consensus process for inclusion of biological markers in the data dictionary. ⋯ Imaging markers included computed tomography (CT) scores (e.g., Marshall scores), pathological observations (e.g., hemorrhage, midline shift), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) classification (e.g., diffuse axonal injury). Clinical context and time of sampling of potential predictive indicators are important considerations for utility. This systematic review and consensus process has identified fluid and imaging biomarkers with high predictive value of clinical and long-term outcomes following moderate-severe TBI.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Mar 2024
ReviewA Perspective on Hormonal Contraception Usage in Central Nervous System Injury.
Naturally occurring life stages in women are associated with changes in the milieu of endogenous ovarian hormones. Women of childbearing age may be exposed to exogenous ovarian hormone(s) because of their use of varying combinations of estrogen and progesterone hormones-containing oral contraceptives (OC; also known as "the pill"). If women have central nervous system (CNS) injury such as spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) during their childbearing age, they are likely to retain their reproductive capabilities and may use OC. ⋯ Our understanding about how the combination of endogenous hormones and OC-conferred exogenous hormones affect outcomes after CNS injuries remains limited. Therefore, understanding the impact of OC use on CNS injury outcomes needs further investigation to reveal underlying mechanisms, promote reporting in clinical or epidemiological studies, and raise awareness of possible compounded consequences. The goal of the current review is to discuss the impacts of CNS injury on endogenous ovarian hormones and vice-versa, as well as the putative consequences of exogenous ovarian hormones (OC) on the CNS to identify potential gaps in our knowledge to consider for future laboratory, epidemiological, and clinical studies.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Mar 2024
Concussion-related disruptions to hub connectivity in the default mode network are related to symptoms and cognition.
Concussions present with a myriad of symptomatic and cognitive concerns; however, the relationship between these functional disruptions and the underlying changes in the brain are not yet well understood. Hubs, or brain regions that are connected to many different functional networks, may be specifically disrupted after concussion. Given the implications in concussion research, we quantified hub disruption within the default mode network (DMN) and between the DMN and other brain networks. ⋯ These results highlight a unique relationship between self-reported symptoms, visual memory performance, and acute functional connectivity changes involving DMN hubs after concussion in athletes. This may provide evidence for a disrupted balance of within- and between-network communication highlighting possible network inefficiencies after concussion. These results aid in our understanding of the pathophysiological disruptions after concussion and inform our understanding of the associations between disruptions in brain connectivity and specific clinical presentations acutely post-injury.