Frontal brain injury chronically impairs timing behavior in rats

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects over 2.8 million people annually, and has been shown to increase motor impulsivity in both humans and animals. However, the root cause of this behavioral disinhibition is not fully understood. The goal of the current study was to evaluate whether timing behavior is disrupted after TBI, which could potentially explain increases in impulsive responding. Twenty-one male three-month old Long-Evans rats were trained on a fixed interval-18 s schedule. Following training, rats were placed on the Peak Interval Procedure, with intermittent peak trials. On peak trials, no behaviors were reinforced and response rates were recorded to determine timing ability. After reaching a stable baseline, rats received bilateral frontal TBI (n = 12) using controlled cortical impact or sham procedures (n = 9). After one week recovery, rats were re-assessed on the Peak Procedure for six weeks. An amphetamine challenge was carried out after behavior reached stable post-injury performance. TBI caused a chronic decrease/acceleration in peak time, increase in response variability, and reduction in response rate. The shifted peak time suggests that altered perception of time may contribute to impairments in response inhibition after TBI. Amphetamine significantly increased response variability, with TBI animals demonstrating greater sensitivity, but did not affect peak time in either group. These data suggest that timing may not be the sole factor explaining impulsive action after TBI given that amphetamine reduced motor impulsivity in prior studies. Further investigations will be needed to dissociate the effects of amphetamine on TBI with regard to timing behavior.