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Detecting Behavioral Deficits in Rats After Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: January 30, 2018
Deficits in social behavior emerge during development after pediatric traumatic brain injury in mice
Bridgette D Semple1, Sandra A Canchola, Linda J Noble-Haeusslein
1Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143-0112, USA. Bridgette.Semple@ucsf.edu
Insights
Pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to evolving social deficits. Brain-injured mice showed impaired social interaction and increased aggression by adulthood, highlighting the need for developmental considerations in TBI treatments.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- The pediatric brain undergoes critical psychosocial development, making it vulnerable to traumatic brain injury (TBI).
- Existing pre-clinical research often overlooks social outcome assessments in pediatric TBI models.
- Adolescence and early adulthood represent key developmental periods for social behavior maturation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the developmental trajectory of social behavior deficits following pediatric TBI.
- To assess social interaction, recognition, and aggression in a mouse model of TBI induced during a critical developmental window.
Main Methods:
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI) was induced in mice at post-natal day 21.
- Social behaviors were evaluated during adolescence and early adulthood using partition, resident-intruder, three-chamber, and tube dominance tasks.
- Olfactory function was assessed to rule out sensory confounds.
Main Results:
- Despite normal adolescent social behavior and olfactory function, adult TBI mice exhibited impaired social investigation, including reduced sniffing and following.
- TBI mice demonstrated a loss of preference for sociability and social novelty, indicating deficits in social recognition or memory.
- Adult TBI mice displayed increased dominance behaviors in the tube task, suggesting heightened aggression.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric TBI can lead to a developmental emergence of social deficits, including reduced interaction and increased aggression, manifesting by adulthood.
- These findings support the hypothesis that the full extent of TBI-related behavioral deficits may only become apparent as associated cognitive skills mature.
- Therapeutic strategies for pediatric TBI must consider the time-dependent evolution of aberrant social behaviors for optimal efficacy.
Abstract:
The pediatric brain may be particularly vulnerable to social deficits after traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to the protracted nature of psychosocial development through adolescence. However, the majority of pre-clinical studies fail to assess social outcomes in experimental pediatric TBI. The current study evaluated social behavior in mice subjected to TBI at post-natal day (p)21. Social behaviors were assessed by a partition test, resident-intruder, three-chamber, and tube dominance tasks during adolescence (p35-42) and again during early adulthood (p60-70), during encounters with unfamiliar, naïve stimulus mice. Despite normal olfactory function and normal social behaviors during adolescence, brain-injured mice showed impaired social investigation by adulthood, evidenced by reduced ano-genital sniffing and reduced following of stimulus mice in the resident-intruder task, as well as a loss of preference for sociability in the three-chamber task. TBI mice also lacked a preference for social novelty, suggestive of a deficit in social recognition or memory. By adulthood, brain-injured mice exerted more frequent dominance in the tube task compared to sham-operated controls, a finding suggestive of aggressive tendencies. Together these findings reveal reduced social interaction and a tendency towards increased aggression, which evolves across development to adulthood. This emergence of aberrant social behavior, which parallels the development of other cognitive deficits in this model and behaviors seen in brain-injured children, is consistent with the hypothesis that the full extent of deficits is not realized until the associated skills reach maturity. Thus, efficacy of therapeutics for pediatric TBI should take into account the time-dependent emergence of abnormal behavioral patterns.
