Investigation of the direct and indirect mechanisms of primary blast insult to the brain.

Aug 9, 2021

Contributor: Jose E Rubio,Ginu Unnikrishnan,Venkata Siva Sai Sujith Sajja,Stephen Van Albert,Franco Rossetti,Maciej Skotak,Eren Alay,Aravind Sundaramurthy,Dhananjay Radhakrishnan Subramaniam,Joseph B Long,Namas Chandra,Jaques Reifman

Investigation of the direct and indirect mechanisms of primary blast insult to the brain.

The interaction of explosion-induced blast waves with the head (i.e., a direct mechanism) or with the torso (i.e., an indirect mechanism) presumably causes traumatic brain injury. However, the understanding of the potential role of each mechanism in causing this injury is still limited. To address this knowledge gap, we characterized the changes in the brain tissue of rats resulting from the direct and indirect mechanisms at 24 h following blast exposure. To this end, we conducted separate blast-wave exposures on rats in a shock tube at an incident overpressure of 130 kPa, while using whole-body, head-only, and torso-only configurations to delineate each mechanism. Then, we performed histopathological (silver staining) and immunohistochemical (GFAP, Iba-1, and NeuN staining) analyses to evaluate brain-tissue changes resulting from each mechanism. Compared to controls, our results showed no significant changes in torso-only-exposed rats. In contrast, we observed significant changes in whole-body-exposed (GFAP and silver staining) and head-only-exposed rats (silver staining). In addition, our analyses showed that a head-only exposure causes changes similar to those observed for a whole-body exposure, provided the exposure conditions are similar. In conclusion, our results suggest that the direct mechanism is the major contributor to blast-induced changes in brain tissues.
© 2021. The Author(s).

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About The Expert

Jose E Rubio

Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, ATTN: FCMR-TT, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD, 21702-5012, USA.

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., 6720A Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.

Ginu Unnikrishnan

Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, ATTN: FCMR-TT, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD, 21702-5012, USA.

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., 6720A Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.

Venkata Siva Sai Sujith Sajja

Blast Induced Neurotrauma Division, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Drive, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.

Stephen Van Albert

Blast Induced Neurotrauma Division, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Drive, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.

Franco Rossetti

Blast Induced Neurotrauma Division, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Drive, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.

Maciej Skotak

Blast Induced Neurotrauma Division, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Drive, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 111 Lock Street, Newark, NJ, 07103, USA.

Eren Alay

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 111 Lock Street, Newark, NJ, 07103, USA.

Aravind Sundaramurthy

Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, ATTN: FCMR-TT, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD, 21702-5012, USA.

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., 6720A Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.

Dhananjay Radhakrishnan Subramaniam

Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, ATTN: FCMR-TT, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD, 21702-5012, USA.

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., 6720A Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.

Joseph B Long

Blast Induced Neurotrauma Division, Center for Military Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Drive, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.

Namas Chandra

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 111 Lock Street, Newark, NJ, 07103, USA.

Jaques Reifman

Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, ATTN: FCMR-TT, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD, 21702-5012, USA. jaques.reifman.civ@mail.mil.

References

PubMed