Assessment of Anxiety- and Depression-like Behaviors and Local Field Potential Changes in a Cryogenic Lesion Model of Traumatic Brain Injury

TL;DR

This study explores how traumatic brain injury leads to anxiety and depression-like behaviors and changes in brain activity patterns.

Contribution

The study introduces a preclinical model linking emotional sequelae of TBI to altered neural oscillatory activity.

Findings

Animals with TBI showed significant anxiety-like behaviors in multiple behavioral tests.

Depression-like behavior was confirmed through the forced swim test.

LFP analysis revealed increased oscillatory activity in the contralateral hemisphere linked to emotional symptoms.

Abstract

Patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) have an elevated risk of developing chronic psychiatric and behavioral disorders, including impairments in motor function, memory deficits, anxiety, and depression. Although a substantial body of work has addressed the treatment and rehabilitation of sensory, motor, and cognitive symptoms after TBI, there is a relative scarcity of comprehensive behavioral assessments targeting neuropsychiatric manifestations in preclinical models. This study aims to investigate the connections between emotional sequelae after TBI and modifications in local field potentials (LFPs). Following cryogenic lesion-induced TBI, animals exhibited anxiety-like behaviors as assessed by the open field test (p < 0.001), light/dark box test (p < 0.001), and elevated plus maze test (p < 0.01). Depression-like behavior was observed using the forced swim test (p < 0.001). LFP analysis demonstrated a marked elevation in neural oscillatory activity associated with anxiety and depression in the contralateral hemisphere relative to the ipsilateral side (p < 0.001). These results indicate that the emotional consequences triggered by TBI may be linked to dysregulated synchronous neural activity between the ipsilateral and contralateral hemispheres.

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