Assessments for Traumatic Brain Injury: An Introduction

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex disease, altering numerous intracellular cascades which affect neuronal, vascular, and glial elements of the brain. Structural damage is coupled with cellular- and systems-level functional impairment. The array of assessments used in state-of-the-art investigations of TBI in experimental models is necessarily diverse, encompassing morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular, neurobehavioral, and neuroimaging tools. Selecting an appropriate assessment approach and utilizing it in a manner which optimizes insights into the pathophysiology of TBI can be a daunting task. This introduction discusses how selection of assessments might be influenced by the model and severity of TBI to be studied and the species, sex, and age of the experimental subjects. The importance of matching outcome measurements to the pathophysiological events being studied and the selection of appropriate time points for assessment are then highlighted. Finally, considerations surrounding the variability, validity, and sensitivity of assessment tools are discussed.