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Transcranial Laser Therapy Does Not Improve Cognitive and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?Related Behavioral Traits in Rats Exposed to Repetitive Low-Level Blast Injury
oleh: Georgina Perez Garcia, Gissel M. Perez, Alena Otero-Pagan, Rania Abutarboush, Usmah Kawoos, Rita De Gasperi, Miguel A. Gama Sosa, Dylan Pryor, Patrick R. Hof, David G. Cook, Sam Gandy, Stephen T. Ahlers, Gregory A. Elder
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | Mary Ann Liebert 2021-12-01 |
Deskripsi
Many military veterans who experienced blast-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from chronic cognitive and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Transcranial laser therapy (TLT) uses low-power lasers emitting light in the far- to near-infrared ranges. Beneficial effects of TLT have been reported in neurological and mental-health?related disorders in humans and animal models, including TBI. Rats exposed to repetitive low-level blast develop chronic cognitive and PTSD-related behavioral traits. We tested whether TLT treatment could reverse these traits. Rats received a 74.5-kPa blast or sham exposures delivered one per day for 3 consecutive days. Beginning at 34 weeks after blast exposure, the following groups of rats were treated with active or sham TLT: 1) Sham-exposed rats (n?=?12) were treated with sham TLT; 2) blast-exposed rats (n?=?13) were treated with sham TLT; and 3) blast-exposed rats (n?=?14) were treated with active TLT. Rats received 5?min of TLT five times per week for 6 weeks (wavelength, 808?nm; power of irradiance, 240?mW). At the end of treatment, rats were tested in tasks found previously to be most informative (novel object recognition, novel object localization, contextual/cued fear conditioning, elevated zero maze, and light/dark emergence). TLT did not improve blast-related effects in any of these tests, and blast-exposed rats were worse after TLT in some anxiety-related measures. Based on these findings, TLT does not appear to be a promising treatment for the chronic cognitive and mental health problems that follow blast injury.