NNS 2015 Program & Abstract Book

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a rising epidemic affecting

millions of people each year. Our understanding of mTBI is still in its

infancy and to gain a greater understanding relevant animal models

should replicate many of the features seen in human mTBI. These

include changes to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters, the

absence of anatomical lesions on conventional neuroimaging, and

changes to neurobehavioral outcomes. These changes are transient in

majority of the mTBI victims. The Maryland Model of TBI causes the

anterior-posterior plus sagittal rotational acceleration of the brain

frequently observed with motor vehicle and sports related TBI injuries

without skull fracture (Kilbourne et al., 2009). The goal of our study

was to characterize longitudinal pathophysiological changes following

a single mTBI using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), behavioral

assays, and histology. On DTI we observed a significant difference in

fractional anisotropy (FA) and longitudinal and radial diffusivities in

the internal capsule 72 hours after injury compared to baseline mea-

sures (n

11). A significant difference in longitudinal diffusivity was

also observed in the genu of the corpus callosum also at 72 hours

compared to baseline measures. The exploratory activity computer-

ized activity box showed significant decrease in the ambulatory dis-

tance, average velocity, stereotypic counts, and vertical counts

compared to baseline measures at 72 hours. Histological examination

of the mTBI brain sections indicated a significant decrease in the

expression of myelin basic protein in the internal capsule. A signifi-

cant increase in the number of apoptotic cells was observed by cas-

pase-3 labeling in these brains as well as compromise of the blood

brain barrier by immunoglobulin-G detection. The changes with DTI

and neurobehavioral outcomes were only observed during the acute

phase of injury, similar to what was observed in human mTBI (Nar-

ayana et al. 2015). Thus this experimental TBI replicates the obser-

vations in human mTBI and can be used to investigate the long-term

effects of mTBI.

Keywords: fractional anisotropy, longitudinal and radial diffusiv-

ities, neurobehavioral

B6-22

ACUTE CHANGES IN FDG PET AFTER SINGLE AND RE-

PEAT MTBI IN RATS CORRELATE WITH CLINICALLY

RELEVANT SYMPTOMS OF CONCUSSION

Casandra Cartagena

, Scott Jones

, Andrea Mountney

, Deborah

Shear

, Stephanie Braverman

, Colin Wilson

, Shalini Jaiswal

, Frank

Tortella

, Reed Selwyn

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Brain trauma neuropro-

tection and neurorestoration, Silver Spring, USA

Uniformed Services University Health Sciences, Translational Ima-

ging Facility, Bethesda, USA

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can lead to immediate symp-

toms (headache, dizziness, confusion, loss of consciousness) but

lack gross pathology on computerized tomography (CT). Most

patients recover within 10 days but a minority have continued

deficits. Change in 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emis-

sion topography (PET) has been suggested as a potential prognostic

indicator of this minority. Here we evaluated FDG and CT 24 hr

post-injury in a rat concussion model using single and repeat

projectile impacts (sPCI, rPCI) to the right cortex. Unlike other

mTBI injury models this model lacks any gross pathology/injury.

Post-injury, animals were evaluated for righting reflex (RR; im-

mediately) and gait analysis (2 hr). Injured animals were compared

to their respective single (sSham) or repeat (rSham) sham controls

(equivalent anesthesia, no impact). All rats were negative for CT

findings including skull fracture. Following sPCI, RR time was

increased and gait analysis showed decreased swing speed com-

pared to sSham; FDG levels were significantly increased in right

olfactory bulb (OB). rPCI also showed increased RR time and

decreased limb swing speed compared to rSham; OB FDG levels

were increased. In addition, following rPCI FDG levels were in-

creased in right cortex and decreased in left hypothalamus. In-

creases in energy utilization may indicate cells in these regions

have initiated recovery processes rather than committing to cell

death. Increased FDG levels in OB correlated with increased RR

and decreased swing speed, suggesting this area may be an acute

marker of injury severity in the absence of gross lesions or positive

CT. Although not well studied, damage to the OB and smell

dysfunction have been reported following mTBI. Given the prox-

imity of the OB to the skull, this area may be particularly sensitive

to coup counter coup injury following concussion. Ongoing studies

will determine whether FDG-PET alterations continue, or have

prognostic value, for long-term deficits.

Keywords: Concussion, mTBI, PET, FDG

B6-23

SOFTWARE TOOL FOR LOADING TRAUMATIC BRAIN

INJURY NEUROIMAGE DATA INTO AN EXTERNAL RE-

POSITORY

Rich Hammett,

Justin Senseney

, Terry Oakes, Gerard Riedy

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, National Intrepid

Center of Excellence, Bethesda, USA

Objective:

Our overall objective is to load neuroimage data into an

external data repository from a military population at the National

Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE). NICoE has image data from

a large number of chronic TBI subjects (N

800). The Federal In-

teragency Traumatic Brain Injury Repository (FITBIR) is a database

for sharing research data on TBI subjects and relating subjects

across studies while protecting their privacy. The objective of this

work is to create a software tool to facilitate transfer of data into the

FITBIR repository, in order to increase accuracy and reduce operator

time.

Methods:

We created a Python software tool, FITBIR Import of

Neuroimage Data (FIND), which takes a list of coded subject iden-

tification numbers, finds selected anonymized image data from our

archive/processing pipeline, subject image database and extracts in-

dexing metadata from these files and other coordinated databases.

FIND builds an upload package of the image files and associated

metadata for each subject and stores them in a FITBIR submission

package. This upload package can be pushed through the FITBIR

image submission preparation program which verifies our extracted

metadata with the metadata stored in each image file, and generates a

thumbnail image for FITBIR. The package is then validated and up-

loaded by the FITBIR submission tool.

Results:

FIND successfully imported 40 full MRI datasets for 6

subjects, and made this task much simpler than available methods. It

is being expanded to include PET data, to generate a thumbnail image

for each image type, and to extract other useful metadata from DI-

COM files to give more control than allowed by the FITBIR image

processing tool.

Conclusion:

We have created a tool to automate and simplify the

importation of large numbers of image files into FITBIR. We are

making it available to other users via FITBIR. We have made

FIND available to others through GitHub, a web-based software

repository.

Keywords: Software, Database, Sharing, FITBIR, military, blast

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