Age-related differences in acute physiologic response to focal traumatic brain injury in piglets

Introduction: The goal of the present study was to determine whether age-re lated differences in the acute physiologic response to scaled cortical impa ct injury contribute to differences in vulnerability to traumatic brain inj ury (TBI), Methods: Heart rate (HR), mean arterial pressure (MAP), brain te mperature (BrT) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) were measured in 22 piglets ( 7 of age 5 days, 8 of age 1 month, 7 of age 4 months) at baseline and for 3 h following scaled cortical impact injury. Results: There were no age-depe ndent variations from baseline in HR, MAP or BrT following injury, CBF incr eased in the 5-day-old animals following injury while CBF in the 1- and 4-m onth-old animals decreased following injury (p = 0.0049), Conclusion: CBF w as shown to have a significant age-dependent response to TBI with the young est animals exhibiting increased CBF following injury. Copyright (C) 2000 S . Karger AG, Basel.