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Researchers from the Department of Cell Biology, Genetics and Physiology at the University of Malaga have led an international scientific team studying how a traumatic brain injury caused by a severe blow to the head affects the brain's long-term response to subsequent stressful situations.

In collaboration with Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center (Columbus, Ohio), the UMA team has demonstrated that the hypothalamus responds differently to stress after such an injury, triggering inflammation associated with avoidance-like and anxiety-like behavior. The hypothalamus—a small region at the base of the brain—connects the nervous system with the endocrine system and is activated in stressful situations, directing the body's response to such stressors.

The research, which so far has been conducted only in animal models, specifically analyzed the consequences of acute stress events involving aggression and social defeat. The results have been published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

"A previous traumatic brain injury can cause subtle, virtually undetectable changes at the cellular and molecular levels that persist over time and may, in the future, alter individuals' behavior in response to subsequent stressful situations," explains UMA scientist María Dolores López, one of the authors of this study, which also involves researchers from IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND.

The expert also points out that microglia, which are largely responsible for trauma-associated neuroinflammation , play an important role in the observed consequences of this injury.

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