Background Neuroplasticity and neurorehabilitation have been extensively studied in animal models of stroke to guide clinical rehabilitation of stroke patients. Similar studies focused on traumatic brain injury (TBI) are lacking. Objective The current study was designed to examine the effects of individual and combined rehabilitative approaches, previously shown to be beneficial following stroke, in an animal model of moderate/severe TBI, the controlled cortical impact (CCI). Methods Rats received a unilateral CCI, followed by reach training, voluntary exercise, or unimpaired forelimb constraint, alone or in combination. Forelimb function was assessed at different time points post-CCI by tests of skilled reaching, motor coordination, and asymmetrical limb use. Results Following CCI, skilled reaching and motor coordination were significantly enhanced by combinations of rehabilitation strategies, not by individual approaches. The return of symmetrical limb use benefited from forelimb constraint alone. None of the rehabilitation strategies affected the size of injury, suggesting that enhanced behavioral function was not a result of neuroprotection. Conclusions The current study has provided evidence that individual rehabilitation strategies shown to be beneficial in animal models of stroke are not similarly sufficient to enhance behavioral outcome in a model of TBI. Motor rehabilitation strategies for TBI patients may need to be more intense and varied. Future basic science studies exploring the underlying mechanisms of combined rehabilitation approaches in TBI as well as clinical studies comparing rehabilitation approaches for stroke versus TBI would prove fruitful.

Background:Calpains play an important role in the regulation of cell death. Results: Calpain-1 inhibition decreases cortical neurodegeneration following TBI by regulating calcium influx and apoptosis of neurons under oxidative stress. Conclusion: Genetic inhibition of calpain-1 reduces neurodegeneration and suppresses neuronal apoptosis. Significance: Targeted inhibition of calpain-1 offers a promising therapeutic approach against TBI and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Instructors in the communication sciences face many challenges when trying to help students develop all of the knowledge and skills necessary for them to become competent clinicians. The primary purpose of this article is to discuss some ways to increase the amount of writing that occurs in the classroom, as well as help instructors use writing to help students develop ownership of the process.Writing is a professional fact of life for speech-language pathologists and audiologists: We write diagnostic reports, daily progress notes, progress summaries, professional correspondence, even work memos and letters of recommendation. Through writing, we address varied and multiple audiences. Often we have time to prepare formal documents, but other times we must execute the tasks with immediacy. We have long outgrown the student notion that we have a particular style of writing or that we are a particular type of writer. The world of work has made us proficient, adaptable, multifaceted, and ever learning.A primary obligation of a discipline's educational program must be to fully prepare students for the writing and documentation responsibilities of being effectively communicating practitioners. As teachers of a discipline, we should not overlook the value of having students write for both learning and assessment purposes as they work their way through the curricula. However, as Russell (1994) pointed out, the instruction of writing has been traditionally "separate from other instruction" (p. 4). The Council on Professional Standards in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology sought to address this situation when they created new standards that mandate student competency in written language (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2000). Of course, this acknowledges written communication as more than a taken-for-granted by-product of academic and professional life. The cost for instructors to implement, monitor, and document student competency in writing is an increased, time-intensive grading load. WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM (WAC)Instructors should not overlook the very act of writing as a valuable method for students to process the information under investigation. As stated by Vygotsky (1962), cognitive functions such as analysis and synthesis develop more fully with the support of written language. Although educators theoretically accept this notion, it is still difficult to implement appropriate writing assignments when faced with a full classroom and a tightly packed knowledge base to convey. We do not want to become what WAC proponent Fulwiler (1994) labeled "dabblers" (p. 56), who agree about a need for better implementation of writing pedagogy but whose own practices remain unaltered.The WAC movement that has taken root on college and university campuses across the country is not a new one. Seminal WAC scholars such as McLeod, Murray, Thaiss, and Emig have developed and championed this cross-disciplinary theory of writing instruction since the 1970s. It is within this pedagogical philosophy that 18 at NAN...