@article{5e6398ff60a6414ba1e4661907ca0e27,
title = "Unconventional animal models for traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy",
abstract = "Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of death worldwide. It is a complex injury that influences cellular physiology, causes neuronal cell death, and affects molecular pathways in the brain. This in turn can result in sensory, motor, and behavioral alterations that deeply impact the quality of life. Repetitive mild TBI can progress into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative condition linked to severe behavioral changes. While current animal models of TBI and CTE such as rodents, are useful to explore affected pathways, clinical findings therein have rarely translated into clinical applications, possibly because of the many morphofunctional differences between the model animals and humans. It is therefore important to complement these studies with alternative animal models that may better replicate the individuality of human TBI. Comparative studies in animals with naturally evolved brain protection such as bighorn sheep, woodpeckers, and whales, may provide preventive applications in humans. The advantages of an in-depth study of these unconventional animals are threefold. First, to increase knowledge of the often-understudied species in question; second, to improve common animal models based on the study of their extreme counterparts; and finally, to tap into a source of biological inspiration for comparative studies and translational applications in humans.",
keywords = "CTE, TBI, blast trauma, concussion, translational medicine",
author = "Ackermans, {Nicole L.} and Merina Varghese and Bridget Wicinski and Joshua Torres and {De Gasperi}, Rita and Dylan Pryor and Elder, {Gregory A.} and {Gama Sosa}, {Miguel A.} and Reidenberg, {Joy S.} and Williams, {Terrie M.} and Hof, {Patrick R.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by an early mobility postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation number P2ZHP3_191255 (NLA) and by grants from the Office of Naval Research N00014-13-1-0808 and N00014-17-1-2737 (TMW) and the Department of Veterans Affairs I01RX002660-01A2, 1I01BX0004067-01A2, 1I21RX003019-01 (MGS), and 1I21RX002876-01, 1I21RX003459-01A1 (GAE). We thank Ni-Ka Ford of the Mount Sinai Instructional Technology Group for creating the illustrations in Figure 1. We also thank Prof. David Lusseau of the Technical University of Denmark for his insightful conversation and for the image shown in Figure 3. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their kind comments and insightful additions to the manuscript. We thank the University of Zurich for providing Open Access status to this manuscript through their CSAL with Wiley. Funding Information: This work was supported by an early mobility postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation number P2ZHP3_191255 (NLA) and by grants from the Office of Naval Research N00014‐13‐1‐0808 and N00014‐17‐1‐2737 (TMW) and the Department of Veterans Affairs I01RX002660‐01A2, 1I01BX0004067‐01A2, 1I21RX003019‐01 (MGS), and 1I21RX002876‐01, 1I21RX003459‐01A1 (GAE). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Authors. Journal of Neuroscience Research published by Wiley Periodicals LLC",
year = "2021",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1002/jnr.24920",
language = "English",
volume = "99",
pages = "2463--2477",
journal = "Journal of Neuroscience Research",
issn = "0360-4012",
publisher = "Wiley-Liss Inc.",
number = "10",
}