. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Mar 13.

Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2013 Feb;14(2):128–142. doi: 10.1038/nrn3407

Table 1.

Commonly used animal models of TBI

Model	Type of injury	Strengths	Weaknesses	Species
CCI	Mainly focal	Highly reproducible	Need for craniotomy	Ferret⁵⁰, mouse⁵⁶, rat⁴⁹, swine⁵⁷, monkey⁵⁸
Weight drop
Feeney	Mainly focal	Injury mechanism close to human TBI	Need for craniotomy; high mortality rate	Rat⁵⁹
Shohami	Mainly focal	Easy operation, with immediate neurological severity scoring at 1h	Not highly reproducible	Rat⁶⁰, mouse²⁹
Marmarou	Mainly diffuse	Injury mechanism close to human TBI; well characterized	Not highly reproducible, high mortality without ventilation	Rat⁵¹, mouse⁶¹
Maryland model	Mainly diffuse	Injury mechanism close to human TBI	Needs further characterization	Rat⁶²
FPI
Middle	Mixed	Highly reproducible with fine-tuning	Need for craniotomy, high mortality	Cat⁶³, rabbit⁶⁴, rat⁶⁵, dog and sheep⁶⁶, swine⁶⁷
Lateral	Mixed	Highly reproducible with fine-tuning	Need for caniotomy, high mortality	Rat⁶⁸, mouse⁶⁹, swine⁷⁰
Blast	Mainly diffuse	Injury mechanism close to military TBI	Need standardization	Rat⁵², mouse⁷¹, swine⁷²
Repeated mild	Mainly diffuse	Injury mechanism close to sports TBI	Need further characterization	Rat⁷³, mouse⁷⁴, swine⁴³
PBBI	Mainly focal	Injury mechanism close to human TBI	Need standardization	Cat⁷⁵, rat⁷⁶

CCI, controlled cortical impact; FPI, fluid percussion injury; PBBI, penetrating ballistic-like brain injury; TBI, traumatic brain injury. The Table is modified, with permission, from REF⁷⁷. [77] © 2010 BioMed Central.