Abstract #1194

Evaluation of Functional Deficit and Recovery in the Rat Somatosensory Cortex After Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury Using FMRI

Juha-Pekka Niskanen^1,2, Antti Airaksinen¹, Jari Nissinen¹, Asla Pitknen¹, Olli Grhn¹

¹Department of Neurobiology, A. I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland; ²Department of Physics, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. In this study, 10 rats with TBI and 6 sham operated controls were imaged during electrical stimulation of the forepaws before TBI and 1, 2 and 8 weeks after TBI. fMRI with forepaw stimulation was able to reveal functional deficit after TBI in the somatosensory cortex outside of the main lesion and also detect partial sensory recovery 8 weeks after TBI. The results suggest that fMRI could serve as a non-invasive user independent tool to evaluate functional recovery after TBI.