Long-term consequences of post-traumatic brain injury

Head injury is a public health problem, and is the most frequent cause of permanent disability in people under 40. Recently, several teams have highlighted the existence of tertiary lesions occurring up to several years after the trauma, during which a microglial neuroinflammatory phenomenon persists and becomes more pronounced, leading to post-concussion syndrome. In children, head trauma presents a number of particularities linked to the immaturity of the central nervous system. In addition, it can have a lifelong impact on these patients, who may develop cognitive and developmental disorders as they grow older. However, there is currently no treatment available to control the onset or evolution of these lesions.
We are studying the long-term effects of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a mouse model. TBI is induced in mice at postnatal day 7 (P7) by weight-drop trauma. This model has been studied in previous works and is the source of acute neuroinflammation with microglial and astrocytic activation, and later, at P45, white matter lesions with thinning of the corpus callosum in TBI mice was detected by immunohistochemistry and confirmed by MRI. In addition, adolescent mice with pediatric TBI showed persistent social interaction deficits and signs of anxiety and depressive behaviors. We have also shown the presence of chronic abnormal microglial and astrocyte reactivity at the impact site in adult TBI mice at P45, suggesting a glial memory.

Our current projects are to study the long-term and distant consequences of head trauma on the cerebellum, and to find therapeutic strategies to limit the consequences of acute and chronic neuroinflammation in adulthood.

Members:

Alice Jacquens (Senior Registrar), Vincent Degos (Research Associate), Stéphanie Sigaut (Research fellow), Hélène Cwerman-Thibaut (Engineer), Abderazak Sidi-Salah (Technician)

Recent publications: