Anaemia worsens early functional outcome after traumatic brain injury: a preliminary study

ABSTRACTObjective: To determine early effects on outcome from traumatic brain injury (TBI) induced by controlled cortical impact (CCI) associated with anaemia in mice.Hypothesis: Outcome from TBI with concomitant anaemia would be worse than TBI without anaemia.Methods: CCI was induced with electromagnetic impaction in four groups of C57BL/6J mice: sham, sham+anaemia; TBI; and TBI+anaemia. Anaemia was created by withdrawal of 30% of calculated intravascular blood volume and saline replacement of equal volume. Functional outcome was assessed by beam-walking test and open field test (after pre-injury training) on post-injury days 3 and 7. After functional assessment, brains removed from sacrificed animals were pathological reviewed with haematoxylin and eosin, cresyl violet, Luxol Fast Blue, and IBA-1 immunostains.Results: Beam-walking was similar between animals with TBI and TBI+anaemia (p = 0.9). In open field test, animals with TBI+anaemia walked less distance than TBI alone or sham animals on days 3 (p <...