Journal article

The Acute Phase of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Is Characterized by a Distance-Dependent Neuronal Hypoactivity

Victoria PA Johnstone, Sandy R Shultz, Edwin B Yan, Terence J O'Brien, Ramesh Rajan

JOURNAL OF NEUROTRAUMA | MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC | Published : 2014

Abstract

The consequences of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) on neuronal functionality are only now being elucidated. We have now examined the changes in sensory encoding in the whisker-recipient barrel cortex and the brain tissue damage in the acute phase (24 h) after induction of TBI (n=9), with sham controls receiving surgery only (n=5). Injury was induced using the lateral fluid percussion injury method, which causes a mixture of focal and diffuse brain injury. Both population and single cell neuronal responses evoked by both simple and complex whisker stimuli revealed a suppression of activity that decreased with distance from the locus of injury both within a hemisphere and across hemispheres..

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