Traumatic Brain Injury Models in Animals

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in young adults in industrialized nations and in the developing world the WHO considers TBI a silent epidemic caused by an increasing number of traffic accidents. Despite the major improvement of TBI outcome in the acute setting in the past 20 years, the assessment, therapeutic interventions, and prevention of long-term complications remain a challenge. In order to get a deeper insight into the pathology of TBI and advancement of medical understanding and clinical progress experimental animal models are an essential requirement. This chapter provides an overview of most commonly used experimental animal TBI models and the pathobiological findings based on current data. In addition, limitations and advantages of each TBI model are mentioned. This will hopefully give an insight into the possibilities of each model and be of value in choosing one when designing a study.