EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONCUSSIONS
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and concussions are pervasive in their negative effects on the brain throughout many demographics. It has been shown that even minor injuries to the brain (mild TBI), either singular or repeated, can cause far-reaching neurological deficits in patients. However, the biological mechanisms leading to neurophysiological and morphological changes are not well understood.
In this project, we are characterizing the functional deficits seen in the brain following repeated mild TBI. Using a closed-head injury model, we have described the effects of this injury in the cortex in mice using BOLD and ASL fMRI to characterize compromised cerebrovascular function alongside electrophysiological recordings of cortical neurons. Recently, our lab has examined these effects at a finer scale using two-photon fluorescence microscopy, in which we utilized optogenetic techniques to obtain vascular and neuronal responses of excitation volumes on the order of single vessels. Our goal with this is work is to assess the mechanism mild injuries have on the brain.
Two-photon microscopy XYZ stack of cortical vasculature and capillary pericytes in the TBI mouse model. Vascular lumen is labelled with Alexa 680 (seen here as red signal) and capillary pericytes labelled with NeuroTrace 500/525 (seen here as white signal).
Two-photon microscopy XYZ stack of a chemically cleared mouse brain. This transgenic mouse expressed tdTomato (red signal) on the vascular endothelial cells and was perfused with Fitc (yellow-green signal) filling the vascular lumen.
