INTRODUCTION: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) initiates a cascade of neuromodulatory damage that blurs the distinctions between physical and psychological medicine. Monitoring endocrine function through labs is not part of the medical care algorithm for treatment of TBI, but the clinical symptoms are easily misidentified as they include: depression, fatigue, poor concentration, irritability and a decline in overall cognitive functioning. The reciprocal flow of change between neuroendocrine health and psychosocial health is well established within the field of neuroscience, social psychology, endocrinology and behavioral neurology, but has not translated into patient care. OBJECTIVES: This paper outlines common neuroendocrine disruptions secondary to TBI and their clinical implications for treating mental health professionals. CONCLUSION: Wider adoption of the consensus guidelines on the detection and monitoring of endocrine abnormalities post-TBI may diminish the severity of functional impairment and improve quality of life.

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High cervical spinal cord injuries (SCI) damage of bulbospinal inputs to phrenic motor neurons results in diaphragm paresis and paralysis. Additionally, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute lung injury (ALI) is prevalent in individuals with SCI (Veeravagu et al., 2013). We have recently shown that a rat model of SCI recapitulates inflammatory and metabolic symptoms of ARDS/ALI (Huffman et al., 2021). Measurements of lung damage are typically performed at endpoint, and therefore do not allow researchers to perform longitudinal or repeated evaluations. Conversely, whole body plethysmography (WBP) is used commonly in longitudinal studies to assess changes in ventilation. WBP systems collect complex pressure waveforms, which are derived to estimate flow, and tidal volumes (Drorbaugh & Fenn, 1955). Recently, methods have been developed to capture more subtle characteristics within respiratory waveforms (Sunshine & Fuller, 2021). By grouping respiratory waveforms into clusters using principle component analysis we can track the prevalence of waveforms with similar patterns between treatment groups and across experimental protocols. In the present study we recorded WBP in adult female Sprague-Dawley rats prior to assessing lung mechanics with a flexivent. Animals were grouped into either, Shelf, Sham, C2Hx and measurements were performed at 6, 12, or 64+ weeks post-surgery. We correlated waveform cluster prevalence with metrics of lung mechanics. The waveform analysis revealed a subset of clusters with moderate correlation to lung compliance, and resistance. This suggests that this waveform analysis method may serve as an in vivo surrogate to estimate lung mechanics during longitudinal studies. NIH R21NS121966 This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

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