Chronic Gene Expression after Traumatic Brain Injury

This project continues our acute TBI studies and initiates chronic studies -- characterizing the temporal genomic profile of the injured brain up to 12 months post-TBI. Thus, the primary objective of this proposal is to determine the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury on gene expression in the hippocampus and cortex, two brain regions known to be particularly vulnerable to TBI. Rats were prepared for fluid percussion traumatic brain injury or sham injury (Naive rats had no anesthesia and were not handled in any way and gene expression in their brains serve as baseline data) and sacrificed 24 hr, 2 week, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year post-injury, hippocampi and cortex were obtained, and stored in RNA later. Total RNA was isolated, quantitified and used for Agilent microarray analysis at GenUs Biosystems. Each group of naive, sham control, TBI has four biological replicates.