Secondary Hypoxemia Exacerbates the Reduction of Visual Discrimination Accuracy and Neuronal Cell Density in the Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus Resulting from Fluid Percussion Injury

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of secondary hypoxemia on visual discrimination accuracy after parasagittal fluid percussion injury (FPI). Rats lived singly in test cages, where they were trained to repeatedly execute a flicker-frequency visual discrimination for food. After learning was complete, all rats were surgically prepared and then retested over the following 4–5 days to ensure recovery to presurgery levels of performance. Rats were then assigned to one of three groups [FPI + Hypoxia (IH), FPI + Normoxia (IN), or Sham Injury + Hypoxia (SH)] and were anesthetized with halothane delivered by compressed air. Immediately after injury or sham injury, rats in groups IH and SH were switched to a 13% O₂ source to continue halothane anesthesia for 30 min before being returned to their test cages. Anesthesia for rats in group IN was maintained using compressed air for 30 min after injury. FPI significantly reduced visual discrimination accuracy and food intake, and increased incorrect choices. Thirty minutes of immediate posttraumatic hypoxemia significantly (1) exacerbated the FPI-induced reductions of visual discrimination accuracy and food intake, (2) further increased numbers of incorrect choices, and (3) delayed the progressive recovery of visual discrimination accuracy. Thionine stains of midbrain coronal sections revealed that, in addition to the loss of neurons seen in several thalamic nuclei following FPI, cell loss in the ipsilateral dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLG) was significantly greater after FPI and hypoxemia than after FPI alone. In contrast, neuropathological changes were not evident following hypoxemia alone. These results show that, although hypoxemia alone was without effect, posttraumatic hypoxemia exacerbates FPI-induced reductions in visual discrimination accuracy and secondary hypoxemia interferes with control of the rat's choices by flicker frequency, perhaps in part as a result of neuronal loss and fiber degeneration in the dLG. These results additionally confirm the utility of this visual discrimination procedure as a sensitive, noninvasive means of assessing behavioral function after experimental traumatic brain injury.