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Virginia Commonwealth University

Theses/Dissertations

2012

Traumatic brain injury

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Diffuse Traumatic Axonal Injury Within The Visual System: Implications For Visual Pathway Reorganization, Jiaqiong Wang Dec 2012

Diffuse Traumatic Axonal Injury Within The Visual System: Implications For Visual Pathway Reorganization, Jiaqiong Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury is a major health problem with much of its morbidity associated with traumatic axonal injury (TAI). To date, significant insight has been gained into the initiating pathogenesis of TAI. However, the specific anterograde and retrograde sequelae of TAI are poorly understood because the diffuse nature of TAI complicates data analysis. To overcome this limitation, we subjected transgenic mice expressing yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) within the visual system to central fluid percussion injury, and consistently generated diffuse TAI within the optic nerve that could easily be followed in the organized YFP positive fibers. We demonstrated progressive axonal swelling, …


The Effect Of Minocycline Treatment On Cell Proliferation And Neurogenesis In The Hippocampus In Young And Aged Brains Following Traumatic Brain Injury, Ashley Harvin Apr 2012

The Effect Of Minocycline Treatment On Cell Proliferation And Neurogenesis In The Hippocampus In Young And Aged Brains Following Traumatic Brain Injury, Ashley Harvin

Theses and Dissertations

Following traumatic brain injury, there is an enhanced cell proliferative and neurogenic response in the young adult hippocampus, which may be associated with innate cognitive recovery. However, in the aged brain, an increased level of inflammatory cell responses was observed following injury concomitant to decreased hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive recovery in the aging population. This suggests that excessive inflammation produced in the injured aging brain has a detrimental effect on neurogenesis and cognitive function. In this study, we examined the effect of anti-inflammatory treatment with minocycline on cell proliferation and generation of new neurons in the dentate gyrus (DG) of …


The Role Of Calcineurin In Dendritic Remodeling And Epileptogenesis In A Rat Model Of Traumatic Brain Injury, John Campbell Feb 2012

The Role Of Calcineurin In Dendritic Remodeling And Epileptogenesis In A Rat Model Of Traumatic Brain Injury, John Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), a leading cause of death and disability in the United States, causes potentially preventable damage in part through the dysregulation of neural calcium levels. This dysregulation likely affects the activity of the calcium-sensitive phosphatase, calcineurin, with serious implications for neural function. To test this possibility, the present study characterized the role of calcineurin in a rat model of brain trauma, the lateral fluid percussion injury model. Golgi-Cox histochemistry revealed an acute post-TBI loss and delayed overgrowth of dendritic spines on principal cortical cells. The spine loss appeared to require calcineurin activity, since administering a calcineurin inhibitor, …


Traumatic Brain Injury Assessment Using The Integration Of Pattern Recognition Methods And Finite Element Analysis, Aghazadeh Babak Seyed Feb 2012

Traumatic Brain Injury Assessment Using The Integration Of Pattern Recognition Methods And Finite Element Analysis, Aghazadeh Babak Seyed

Theses and Dissertations

The overall goal of this research is to develop methods and algorithms to investigate the severity of Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to estimate the intracranial pressure (ICP) level non-invasively. Brain x-ray computed tomography (CT) images and artificial intelligence methods are employed to estimate the level of ICP. Fully anisotropic complex wavelet transform features are proposed to extract directional textural features from brain images. Different feature selection and classification methods are tested to find the optimal feature vector and estimate the ICP using support vector regression. By using systematic feature extraction, selection and classification, promising results on ICP estimation are …