Perez Garcia Georgina, Perez Gissel M, Otero-Pagan Alena, Abutarboush Rania, Kawoos Usmah, De Gasperi Rita, Gama Sosa Miguel A, Pryor Dylan, Hof Patrick R, Cook David G, Gandy Sam, Ahlers Stephen T, Elder Gregory A
Research and Development Service, James J. Peters Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA.
Department of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
Neurotrauma Rep. 2021 Dec 2;2(1):548-563. doi: 10.1089/neur.2021.0005. eCollection 2021.
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 ( = 12) were treated with sham TLT; 2) blast-exposed rats ( = 13) were treated with sham TLT; and 3) blast-exposed rats ( = 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.
许多在伊拉克和阿富汗冲突中经历过与爆炸相关的创伤性脑损伤（TBI）的退伍军人患有慢性认知和心理健康问题，包括创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）。经颅激光治疗（TLT）使用发射远红外到近红外范围光的低功率激光。TLT在人类和动物模型的神经和心理健康相关疾病（包括TBI）中已报道有有益效果。暴露于重复性低强度爆炸的大鼠会出现慢性认知和与PTSD相关的行为特征。我们测试了TLT治疗是否能逆转这些特征。大鼠每天接受一次74.5千帕的爆炸或假暴露，连续3天。在爆炸暴露后34周开始，以下几组大鼠接受主动或假TLT治疗：1）假暴露大鼠（n = 12）接受假TLT治疗；2）爆炸暴露大鼠（n = 13）接受假TLT治疗；3）爆炸暴露大鼠（n = 14）接受主动TLT治疗。大鼠每周接受5次、每次5分钟的TLT治疗，共6周（波长808纳米；辐照功率240毫瓦）。在治疗结束时，对大鼠进行先前发现最具信息量的任务测试（新物体识别、新物体定位、情境/线索恐惧条件反射、高架零迷宫和明暗箱出现）。在任何这些测试中，TLT都没有改善与爆炸相关的影响，并且在一些与焦虑相关的测量中，爆炸暴露大鼠在接受TLT治疗后情况更糟。基于这些发现，TLT似乎不是治疗爆炸伤后慢性认知和心理健康问题的有前景的治疗方法。
