Symptoms And Treatment Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries

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Introduction
Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are amongst the most common injuries affecting approximately 42 million individuals annually (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). This incidence rate is inaccurate as many mTBI are not reported (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). Such injuries are thought to increase susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). AD accounts for up to 80% of all senile dementia and is characterized by cognitive deficits that progressively manifest into severe cognitive and behavioral impairment (Elder et al., 2010). Such symptoms are causally associated with amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles…show more content…
A cohort of mice underwent a second mTBI after 24 hours. Mice from both WT and Tg groups were assessed 2 days, 9 weeks, and 16 weeks after mTBI treatment. Primarily, H&E stain was employed along with Gomori’s iron stain to localize site and severity of mTBI injury. The degree of A deposition in the somatosensory cortex (SSC), the perihippocampal cortex (PHC), and the hippocampus (HP) of both hemispheres was determined by 4G8 immunostaining. In addition, GFAP staining was used to quantify the population of astrocytes at the site of the injury. Furthermore, Sandwich ELISA was utilized in mice groups 16 weeks after injury to measure A40 and A42 peptide levels in various brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, and the cerebellum. Such tissues were also analyzed for isoprostane levels that are produced by lipid peroxidation. Isoprostanes were also detected in urine samples at various survival periods. Moreover, mice underwent Morison water maze (MWM) and composite neuroscore (NS) tests at 16 weeks’ post-injury to examine cognitive and motor functions respectively. Uryu and collegues found a significant increase in iron deposits and reactive astrocytes in the repetitive mTBI postmortem sections of Tg mice, when compared to other groups at 16 weeks after the injury. This was not the case in WT mice. Similarly, there was a significant increase in the A burden within select brain regions (i.e. SSC, PHC, HP) of single and
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