Postinjury weight rather than cognitive or behavioral impairment predicts development of posttraumatic epilepsy after lateral fluid-percussion injury in rats

Abstract

Objective: To identify postinjury physiologic, behavioral, and cognitive biomarkers for posttraumatic epilepsy to enrich study populations for long-term antiepileptogenesis studies. Methods: The EPITARGET cohort with behavioral follow-up and 1-month 24/7 video-electroencephalography (vEEG) monitoring included 115 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats with lateral fluid-percussion–induced traumatic brain injury (TBI), 23 sham-operated controls, and 13 naive rats. Animals underwent assessment of somatomotor performance (composite neuroscore), anxiety-like behavior (elevated plus maze, open field), spatial memory (Morris water maze), and depression-like behavior (Porsolt forced swim, sucrose preference). Impact force, postimpact apnea time, postimpact seizure-like behavior, and body weight were monitored. Results: TBI rats were impaired in the composite neuroscore (P