Chronic neuropathological and neurobehavioral changes in a repetitive mild traumatic brain injury model.

Objective: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a recognized risk factor for later development of neurodegenerative disease. However, the mechanisms contributing to neurodegeneration following TBI remain obscure.

Methods: In this study, we have utilized a novel mild TBI (mTBI) model to examine the chronic neurobehavioral and neuropathological outcomes following single and repetitive mTBI at time points from 6 to 18 months following injury.

Repetitive mild traumatic brain injury augments tau pathology and glial activation in aged hTau mice.

Extensive tau-immunoreactive neurons and glial cells associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) have been documented in the brains of some professional athletes and others with a history of repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (r-mTBI). The neuropathology and tau involvement in mTBI have not been extensively studied in animal models, particularly in aged animals. We investigated the effects of single mTBI (s-mTBI) and r-mTBI in 18-month-old hTau mice, which express wild-type human tau isoforms on a null murine tau background (n = 3-5 per group).