Controlled cortical impact before or after fear conditioning does not affect fear extinction in mice.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized in part by impaired extinction of conditioned fear. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is thought to be a risk factor for development of PTSD. We tested the hypothesis that controlled cortical impact (CCI) would impair extinction of fear learned by Pavlovian conditioning, in mice.

Role of Akt and mammalian target of rapamycin in functional outcome after concussive brain injury in mice.

Akt (protein kinase B) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of cell death and cognitive outcome after cerebral contusion in mice; however, a role for Akt/mTOR in concussive brain injury has not been well characterized. In a mouse closed head injury (CHI) concussion traumatic brain injury (TBI) model, phosphorylation of Akt (p-Akt), mTOR (p-mTOR), and S6RP (p-S6RP) was increased by 24 hours in cortical and hippocampal brain homogenates (P<0.05 versus sham for each), and p-S6RP was robustly induced in IBA-1+ microglia and glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive (GFAP+) astrocytes.