ABSTRACT
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a heterogeneous condition that often results in long-term consequences, such as the development of aberrant alcohol use patterns and progression to dependence. Despite this observation, limited data exists from use of preclinical TBI models to explore injuryinduced alterations in alcohol-related behaviors, which has hampered progress in the field. Here we describe a subset of paradigms useful for evaluating features of alcohol use in rodents and their compatibility with existing models of TBI. The combination of TBI and alcohol-use models comes with considerations, but can be an effective means to further our understanding of TBI as a risk factor for alcohol use behaviors, identify underlying mechanisms of this clinical observation and develop therapies for use in the affected population.
Although injury symptoms may be subtle or even undetectable, as in the case of mild TBI, long-lasting consequences often develop in the brain-injured patient. The heterogeneity of TBI results in a wide spectrum of behavioral dysfunction. Numerous reports demonstrate that TBI results in cognitive impairments and increased risk of both affective disorder and Alzheimer disease (Hibbard et al., 1998; McDonald et al., 2002; Salmond and Sahakian, 2005; Rogers and Read, 2007; VanDenHeuvel et al., 2007). Additional reports indicate that TBI survivors often acquire behavioral disturbances, including development of substance and/or alcohol misuse behaviors (Adams et al., 2012a; Corrigan and Cole, 2008).
