Developing a Clinically Relevant Model of Cognitive Training After Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

What is the Clinically Relevant Model of Cognitive Training After Stroke?  Since we don't have one survivors are completely on their own doing dangerous cognitive training with no supervision. This may be in rats but we have to start somewhere.
http://nnr.sagepub.com/content/29/5/483?etoc

1. Samuel W. Brayer1
2. Scott Ketcham1
3. Huichao Zou, MD, PhD2
4. Max Hurwitz1
5. Christopher Henderson1
6. Jay Fuletra1
7. Krishma Kumar1
8. Elizabeth Skidmore, PhD3
9. Edda Thiels, PhD4
10. Amy K. Wagner, MD2

1. ¹Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh
2. ²Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, University of Pittsburgh
3. ³Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Pittsburgh
4. ⁴Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh

1. Amy K. Wagner, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh, Kaufmann Building, Suite 202, 3471 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. Email: wagnerak@upmc.edu

Abstract

Background. Following traumatic brain injury (TBI), clinical cognitive training paradigms harness implicit and explicit learning and memory systems to improve function; however, these systems are differentially affected by TBI, highlighting the need for an experimental TBI model that can test efficacy of cognitive training approaches.  

Objectives. To develop a clinically relevant experimental cognitive training model using the Morris water maze (MWM) wherein training on implicitly learned task components was provided to improve behavioral performance post-TBI.  

Methods. Eighty-one adult male rats were divided by injury status (controlled cortical impact [CCI]/Sham), non-spatial cognitive training (CogTrained/No-CogTrained), and extra-maze cues (Cued/Non-Cued) during MWM testing. Platform latencies, thigmotaxis, and search strategies were assessed during MWM trials.  

Results. Cognitive training was associated with improved platform latencies, reduced thigmotaxis, and more effective search strategy use for Sham and CCI rats. In the Cued and Non-Cued MWM paradigm, there were no differences between CCI/CogTrained and Sham/No-CogTrained groups. During novel testing conditions, CogTrained groups applied implicitly learned knowledge/skills; however, sham-cued CogTrained/rats better incorporated extramaze cues into their search strategy than the CCI-Cued group. Cognitive training had no effects on contusion size or hippocampal cell survival.  

Conclusions. The results provide evidence that CCI-CogTrained rats that learned the nonspatial components of the MWM task applied these skills during multiple conditions of the place-learning task, thereby mitigating cognitive deficits typically associated with this injury model. The results show that a systematic application of clinically relevant constructs associated with cognitive training paradigms can be used with experimental TBI to affect place learning.