Electromagnetic Controlled Closed-Head Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Mice

Highly reproducible animal models of traumatic brain injury (TBI), with well-defined pathologies, are needed for testing therapeutic interventions and understanding the mechanisms of how a TBI alters brain function. The availability of multiple animal models of TBI is necessary to model the different aspects and severities of TBI seen in people. This manuscript describes the use of a midline closed head injury (CHI) to develop a mouse model of mild TBI. The model is considered mild because it does not produce structural brain lesions based on neuroimaging or gross neuronal loss. However, a single impact creates enough pathology that cognitive impairment is measurable at least 1 month after injury. A step-by-step protocol to induce a CHI in mice using a stereotaxically guided electromagnetic impactor is defined in the paper. The benefits of the mild midline CHI model include the reproducibility of the injury-induced changes with low mortality. The model has been temporally characterized up to 1 year after the injury for neuroimaging, neurochemical, neuropathological, and behavioral changes. The model is complementary to open skull models of controlled cortical impact using the same impactor device. Thus, labs can model both mild diffuse TBI and focal moderate-to-severe TBI with the same impactor.