Animals models of traumatic brain injury: A review

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of mortality and disability in young adults. Survivors of TBI suffer from long-term personality changes and deficits in cognitive and motor performance, which urgently requires appropriate and useful animals models that can imitate pathological changes related to human brain injury and thereby choosing the proper pharmacological treatment of the disease. Animal models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are used to reveal primary and secondary consequences associated with the underlying human head injury in an effort to identify potential neuroprotective therapies for developing and adult brains. Till date, no single animal model can adequately mimic all aspects of human TBI owing to the heterogeneity of clinical TBI. In this review, several established animal models of head trauma like cor-tical impact model, fluid percussion model, inertial acceleration, impact acceleration and weight-drop methods are evaluated. The various types of injury including contact (direct impact) and non-contact (acceleration/deceleration) and their associated pathologies are also described. This review is useful in the investigation of new therapeutic strategies and pharmacological testing for improved treatment for trau-matic head injury. In conclusion, this review highlights the contribution of different types of animal models to our understanding of the neuropathology of head injury.