Exploring Traumatic Brain Injuries in Rats: A Comprehensive Systematic Review
Abstract
A significant percentage of instances of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) are mild TBIs, such as concussions and constitute a serious public health problem. It is necessary to study the processes and pathological consequences of mild traumatic brain injuries in animals to assess treatment options. The purpose of this review is to investigate existing research on mild TBI in rats, with an emphasis on concussion and closed head injury. We performed a review search using keywords including closed head injury, concussion along with mild TBI, as well as rat on PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar. A total of 200 publications from PubMed, 300 from Web of Science and 400 from Google Scholar were found during the search. We thoroughly reviewed and chose 40 papers for analysis, according to the PRISMA recommendations. The authors' classification of closed head injuries in rats or mice as moderate satisfies the inclusion requirements for the article. Our findings demonstrate the great diversity of approaches to modelling MTBIs. Furthermore, we found that experimental MTBI research had a low representation of female rats as well as young and old animals. The findings can be used to compare the injury models in context and serve as a basis for choosing the best MTBI model to test a certain assumption. We ensure that this assessment will serve as a helpful beginning point for figuring out what has been accomplished and what information is lacking in the effort to mitigate the impact of MTBIs.
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