Large animal models of traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Purpose/Aim: Animal models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) provide powerful tools to study TBI in a controlled, rigorous and cost-efficient manner. The mostly used animals in TBI studies so far are rodents. However, compared with rodents, large animals (e.g. swine, rabbit, sheep, ferret, etc.) show great advantages in modeling TBI due to the similarity of their brains to human brain. The aim of our review was to summarize the development and progress of common large animal TBI models in past 30 years.

Materials and Methods: Mixed published articles and books associated with large animal models of TBI were researched and summarized.

Results: We majorly sumed up current common large animal models of TBI, including discussion on the available research methodologies in previous studies, several potential therapies in large animal trials of TBI as well as advantages and disadvantages of these models.

Conclusions: Large animal models of TBI play crucial role in determining the underlying mechanisms and screening putative therapeutic targets of TBI.

KEYWORDS:

• Large animal models
• traumatic brain injury
• review

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the under grant from Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medicine and Engineering Cross Fund (YG 2015MS25).

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the grant from Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medicine and Engineering Cross Fund [grant number YG 2015MS25].

Notes on contributors

Jun-Xi Dai

Jun-Xi Dai is a surgeon of Department of Neurosurgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Yan-Bin Ma

Yan-Bin Ma is a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and a surgeon of Department of Neurosurgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Nan-Yang Le

Nan-Yang Le is a surgeon of Department of Neurosurgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Jun Cao

Jun Cao is a surgeon of Department of Neurosurgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Yang Wang

Yang Wang is a doctor of Department of Emergency, Xin Hua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.