Repeated mild traumatic brain injury can cause acute neurologic impairment without overt structural damage in juvenile rats
Fig 6
Repeat ACHI did not produce significant motor impairments or anxiety like behaviour at one hour and one day after injury.
(A) There was no significant effect of injury, sex, or time point on the latency to fall from the Rotarod. Subjects were trained to use the Rotarod prior to injury, and then tested on a protocol accelerating from 10 to 50 RPM in a 5 minute interval. (B) Subjects were placed in a 100 cm diameter open field maze and allowed to explore freely for 5 minutes. Repeat ACHI did not impair overall mobility, as there were no significant differences in the total distance moved. A significant effect of post injury time point indicates all groups and sexes travelled a shorter distance on PID one. (B) There was no significant effect of sex or injury on the average proportion of time spent in the center (70cm diameter) of the open field maze, but all subjects spent significantly less time in the center on PID 1. (D) There was a significant effect of sex on the amount of time spent in the open arms of the elevated plus maze, indicating that across groups and time point’s females spent less time in the open arms. (PID: post injury day; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001; # main effect of sex, p<0.05).