BriteVu used to study Traumatic Brain Injury

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Jan 9, 2019/ Off Comments / in Non-Human Mammals, standard
BriteVu used to study Traumatic Brain Injury

Dr Gama-Sosa and his team (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) completed and published a ground-breaking study that better characterizes the effects of traumatic brain injury in rats.  The animals were humanely subjected to low level blast injury that did not result in any obvious general brain histopathology. The injury mimicked the low-level blast exposure that military personnel may be exposed to in combat situations- not the major blast injury that results in obvious physical trauma.  The research team used multiple advanced tests to demonstrate significant pathology not evident by more traditional means.  Using BriteVu contrast media, the researchers demonstrated, that 10 months after the blast injury, the rat brains had 50% or more loss of brain blood supply (total vascular length, total surface area and total volume) compared to controls.  Further, there was general loss of vascular organization and disruption of the vascular pattern in the post-blast injury rats.   This supports earlier suggested findings that vascular damage from blast injury can persist for at least 6-10 months after the traumatic episode.  Further, it shows that low level blast injury that is not associated with obvious physical injuries can result is serious damage to the brain.  The images are quite striking (see figure 16 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40478-018-0647-5).  The implications obviously go beyond rats and will hopefully spur even more research to help us better understand disorders such as PTSD that result traumatic brain injury.