Concussion, microvascular injury, and early tauopathy in young athletes after impact head injury and an impact concussion mouse model.

ABSTRACT: The mechanisms underpinning concussion, traumatic brain injury, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the relationships between these disorders, are poorly understood. We examined post-mortem brains from teenage athletes in the acute-subacute period after mild closed-head impact injury and found astrocytosis, myelinated axonopathy, microvascular injury, perivascular neuroinflammation, and phosphorylated tau protein pathology. To investigate causal mechanisms, we developed a mouse model of lateral closed-head impact injury that uses momentum transfer to induce traumatic head acceleration. Unanaesthetized mice subjected to unilateral impact exhibited abrupt onset, transient course, and rapid resolution of a concussion-like syndrome characterized by altered arousal, contralateral hemipare

SUBMITTER: Tagge CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5837414 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature