Modeling Highly Repetitive Low-level Blast Exposure in Mice

Exposure to explosive blasts is a significant risk factor for brain trauma among exposed persons. Although the effects of large blasts on the brain are well understood, the effects of smaller blasts such as those that occur during military training are less understood. This small, low-level blast exposure also varies highly according to military occupation and training tempo, with some units experiencing few exposures over the course of several years whereas others experience hundreds within a few weeks. Animal models are an important tool in identifying both the injury mechanisms and long-term clinical health risks following low-level blast exposure. Models capable of recapitulating this wide range of exposures are necessary to inform acute and chronic injury outcomes across these disparate risk profiles. Although outcomes following a few low-level blast exposures are easily modeled for mechanistic study, chronic exposures that occur over a career may be better modeled by blast injury paradigms with repeated exposures that occur frequently over weeks and months. Shown here are methods for modeling highly repetitive low-level blast exposure in mice. The procedures are based on established and widely used pneumatic shocktube models of open-field blast exposure that can be scaled to adjust the overpressure parameters and the number or interval of the exposures. These methods can then be used to either enable mechanistic investigations or recapitulate the routine blast exposures of clinical groups under study.