Neurobehavioral Effects of Anterior, Superior and Lateral Head Injury on Adult Male Wistar Rats

Background: Head injury is a common occurrence among sports men and women, the military and paramilitary as well as in road accidents. Victims of head trauma in Nigeria usually do not receive proper medical attention. This is because once the patient recovers and is able to move, healing is assumed. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the neurobehavioral effects of traumatic head injuries on adult male Wistar rats.

Results: The result of the hanging wire test for motor function showed that animals in the control group could hang on their limbs for longer duration throughout the three tests. Animals in group B had a slight decrease in duration as the tests progressed. However, animals in groups C and D had a significant decrease in duration as the tests progressed. The result of the Morris water maze test for spatial learning showed that it took the rats in the control group less time to locate the escape platform compared to rats in the experimental groups. The Open field test for model of anxiety-like behaviour evaluated the animals’ response level to centre freezing, line crossing, rearing, grooming, urination, faeces and freezing. The result of the open field tests showed that animals in the control group responded better to the tests than animals in the experimental groups.

Conclusions: Head injury resulted in weakness, poor memory performance, high level of fear and anxiety and higher tendency to be static (freezing). These tendencies became worse days after the injury. The study also noted that lateral head injury produced worse effects compared to superior and anterior head injuries.