Mechanisms Underlying Resilience in a Female Rat Model of Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents a major health burden worldwide. Repetitive mild TBI (rmTBI) involves repetitive less severe brain injuries, that often go undiagnosed. Much rmTBI research has been performed on male subjects. Therefore, we examined the effects of rmTBI on cognitive and hormonal outcomes in a female rat model of female rmTBI. We employed a weight-drop TBI model that consisted of 215 g of weight dropped from a height of 0.61 m, once a day for five consecutive days. Our results showed that female rats segregate into 50% susceptible and 50% resilient populations. Additionally, we found that resilient rats showed increased corticosterone (CORT) levels post TBI than susceptible rats and resilient rats ceased cycling in the proestrus phase as compared to susceptible rats that continued to cycle. These findings suggest that an intact CORT and estrous cycle response are associated with resilience to rmTBI.