PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lauren J Putnam
AU  - Ashley M Willes
AU  - Brooke E Kalata
AU  - Nathaniel D Disher
AU  - Douglas J Brusich
TI  - Expansion of a fly TBI model to four levels of injury severity reveals synergistic effects of repetitive injury for moderate injury conditions
AID  - 10.1101/611244
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 611244
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/16/611244.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/16/611244.full
AB  - Several million traumatic brain injury (TBI) events are reported in the United States annually. However, mild TBI events often go unreported, and mild and repetitive mild TBI conditions are challenging to model. Fruit flies have gained traction for the study of TBI. The best-characterized fly TBI model is the high-impact trauma (HIT) method. We replicated the HIT method and confirmed several previous findings at the standard level of injury severity. We then expanded upon the HIT model by characterizing mortality across three reduced levels of injury severity. Importantly, we found reduced mortality with reduced injury severity and synergistic effects on mortality in response to repetitive TBI by our moderate injury conditions. Thus, we have extended a well-characterized model of TBI in flies, and shown the utility of this model for making unique insights into TBI at various severities and upon repetitive injury.