TY - JOUR
T1 - A comparison of two cognitive test paradigms in a penetrating brain injury model
AU - Davis, Angela R.
AU - Shear, Deborah A.
AU - Chen, Zhiyong
AU - Lu, Xi Chun M.
AU - Tortella, Frank C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Department of the Army , award W81XWH-08-2-0127, with The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21702-5014, as the awarding and administering acquisition office. The information has been reviewed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research with no objection to its presentation and/or publication. The content of the information are the private views of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
PY - 2010/5
Y1 - 2010/5
N2 - A rat model of penetrating ballistic-like brain injury (PBBI) was recently established to study military-relevant severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The purpose of this study was to conduct a side-by-side evaluation of two well-established cognitive testing paradigms: the novel object recognition (NOR) task and the Morris water maze (MWM) task. Accordingly, male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to PBBI and their cognitive abilities were assessed at 7 and 21 days post-PBBI. Although PBBI animals had more difficulty completing both tasks compared to sham animals, their performance on the NOR task was confounded by a high degree of within-group variability that was likely due to attention deficits produced by the injury. In contrast, PBBI produced consistent, significant spatial learning deficits in the MWM task. Overall, these results suggest that the MWM task provides a more appropriate cognitive test for the PBBI model that would be useful for testing promising neuroprotective therapeutics.
AB - A rat model of penetrating ballistic-like brain injury (PBBI) was recently established to study military-relevant severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The purpose of this study was to conduct a side-by-side evaluation of two well-established cognitive testing paradigms: the novel object recognition (NOR) task and the Morris water maze (MWM) task. Accordingly, male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to PBBI and their cognitive abilities were assessed at 7 and 21 days post-PBBI. Although PBBI animals had more difficulty completing both tasks compared to sham animals, their performance on the NOR task was confounded by a high degree of within-group variability that was likely due to attention deficits produced by the injury. In contrast, PBBI produced consistent, significant spatial learning deficits in the MWM task. Overall, these results suggest that the MWM task provides a more appropriate cognitive test for the PBBI model that would be useful for testing promising neuroprotective therapeutics.
KW - Morris water maze
KW - Novel object recognition
KW - Penetrating brain injury
KW - Traumatic brain injury
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77952552291&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2010.03.012
DO - 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2010.03.012
M3 - Article
C2 - 20346980
AN - SCOPUS:77952552291
SN - 0165-0270
VL - 189
SP - 84
EP - 87
JO - Journal of Neuroscience Methods
JF - Journal of Neuroscience Methods
IS - 1
ER -