Shockwaves Cause Synaptic Degeneration in Cultured Neurons

Abstract

Mild traumatic brain injury may affect as many as 400,000 soldiers returning from recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. To determine how shockwaves directly affect neurons, we used a biolostic gene gun to deliver shockwaves to cultured hippocampal or cortical neurons. These cultured cells form abundant synapses in vitro, and after a 24-48 hour period of incubation following shockwave exposure, immunocytochemical labeling showed a significant reduction in synaptic densities in shockwave-exposed cultures compared to control cultures. While the molecular mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is not known, these results suggest that shockwaves emanating from explosive devices may specifically affect synaptic plasticity in the brain.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 02, 2009
Accession Number
ADA520909

Entities

People

  • Cameron R. Bass
  • Garrett Wood
  • Heng-ye Man
  • James O. Deshler
  • Matthew B Panzer
  • Matthew T. Ferenc
  • Raúl Radovitzky

Organizations

  • Boston University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Agreements
  • Antibodies
  • Biological Staining And Labeling
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Brain Injuries
  • Cells
  • Cellular Structures
  • Cultured Cells
  • Cytoskeleton
  • Department Of Defense
  • Engineering
  • Explosive Devices
  • Improvised Explosive Devices
  • Medical Personnel
  • Particles
  • Students

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Immunology
  • Neural Network Machine Learning.
  • Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Cognitive Aging in the Guam and Border Populations Affected by Alzheimer's Disease and Tau-Associated Dementias.