Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious societal and medical issue with severe impacts. In Canada, 44% of adult women who have been in an intimate partner relationship have experienced IPV. Brain injury (BI) as a result of IPV occurs in upwards of 90% of survivors. IPV-BI is likely unique to other brain injuries as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) often occurs in combination with non-fatal strangulation (NFS) and stress. This study will use a stress paradigm with an internationally unique animal model of IPV-BI by combining mTBI+NFS to study the synergistic effects of stress on outcomes of IPV-BI. It is hypothesized that rats exposed to stress+IPV-BI will have worse outcomes on behavioural measures, exacerbated and unique pathophysiological profiles compared to stress or IPV-BI in isolation. Young-adult female and male rats will be randomly assigned to 4 groups: Sham, Stress, IPV-BI (mTBI+NFS), or Stress+IPV-BI. Stress is induced using a 5 day predator scent paradigm and IPV-BI is induced by a lateral impact device for mTBI and weighted suspension over the trachea for NFS. IPV-BI will occur immediately following the stress paradigm. Brains and blood will be collected at 2h, 48h, or 1-week recovery timepoints to characterize temporal profile of brain injury pathophysiology and related blood biomarkers. A series of behavioural tests will be used to interpret locomotor, cognitive, and depressive- and anxiety-like behavioural deficits. The development of a new rodent model incorporating stress and IPV-BI (mTBI+NFS) will provide a novel tool to assess IPV. Blood biomarker profiles could one day help clinicians identify and diagnose IPV brain injury while pathophsyiological findings will provide a foundation for future therapeutic targets and discovery.