Traumatic Brain Injury: November 2006 Archives

Researchers Increase Growth of Adult Brain Stem Cells

Researchers have found a way to increase the growth of neural stem cells in the brains of adult mice; this discovery may prove important in regenerating lost brain tissue in those who suffer from traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer's disease. The study is yet another example of the potential for stem cells in replacing cells that have been damaged by illness or injury.

Researchers Spur Growth of Adult Brain Stem Cells

While this study involved mice, the researchers noted that human cells also have neural stem cells in their brains. The brains of those suffering neurodegenative diseases appear to try to replace injured cells with neural stem cells, but are not successful at a great enough rate to do the job. "The adult brain does try to repair itself by stimulating its own neural stem cells. But obviously it's not enough. So what we're trying to do here is kick it in the pants and increase the number of neural stem cells," said Paul Patterson, of California Institute of Technology and senior author of the study.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Accident in Kodiak, Alaska Causes Traumatic Brain Injury

An boy received a traumatic brain injury when he was hit by a car in Kodiak, Alaska. A man, Larry Goss from Kodiak, was charged with assault in relation to the accident. Another woman, Cynthia Rossiter, is also facing charges. Both people told the police in Kodiak that Rossiter was driving when the accident occurred. Rossiter was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. After the accident, Goss confessed that he was actually driving and he turned himself in.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brain Injury Researchers Look at Rodents

Hibernating Arctic ground squirrels may provide clues to scientists researching brain injury. During hibernation, ground squirrels are able to resist brain damage and injuries related to loss of blood flow and oxygen to the brain. It is believed that this is because squirrels are able to maintain a body temperature below freezing; this is very uncommon in mammals.

Brain Injury Researchers Taking Clue from Rodent

Kelly Drew, a researcher at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, said of the squirrel: “The Arctic ground squirrel is famous for being super cool. The more I play with these animals the more I find they are remarkable. They just don’t display trauma to the brain.” Drew said that induced hibernation might mean injured soldiers or people without access to medical treatment could survive with fewer long-term injuries.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Instructions After Brain Injury Not Clear

Those released from U.S. and Canadian hospitals after suffering a concussion or other traumatic brain injury often don't get clear information about possible complications. Research at the University of Buffalo found that 14 out of 15 discharge sheets that they reviewed lacked at least one important sign of possible hemorrhage. Many of the instructions sheets also were written at too advanced a reading level and some suggestions for concussion management were incorrect.

Dr. Michael Fung, a physician at the University of Buffalo, said that "Not one hospital had all of the information needed in a simple, easy-to-understand format. We were especially surprised that the designated trauma hospitals in both countries had such inadequate discharge information sheets." The findings from the study were published in Brain Injury.

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How do Memories Work?

Researchers at UC Irvine have found that the amount of detail a person is able to remember about an event is associated with how much of a certain portion of the brain is activated to "package" the memory. The discovery helps explain why sometime people can only recall parts of some events, but can vividly recall other similar events. “This study provides a neurological basis for what psychologists have been telling us for years. You can’t get out of memory what you didn’t put into it. It is not possible to remember things later if you didn’t pay attention to them in the first place,” said Michael Rugg, director of Irvine's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and senior author of the paper.

Memories: It's All In The Packaging, Scientists Say

“We know that if the intra-parietal sulcus is damaged, then someone cannot attend to multiple aspects of the same object, such as its size and color,” said Melina Uncapher, lead author of the study. “This study provides empirical evidence for how critical this region is for bringing the constituents of a memory together in the brain. Memory is more than a sum of its parts. A complete memory of an event requires that the features of the event be brought together and processed by the brain as a common perceptual representation, before being stored.” The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Wellcome Trust.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Young Rats Have Speedier Spinal Cord Recovery

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that cells near the site of a spinal cord injury work to restrict nerve damage and restore movement and sensation, especially in younger rats. This contradicts the standard belief that the only way to repair a spinal cord injury is to grow new neural connections. “No one knew cells in the spinal cord acted to protect nerves in this way, so it gives us some hope that in the future we could stimulate this process in the clinic to enhance recovery and ensure the best outcome possible for patients,” said author Jean R. Wrathall, a professor in Neuroscience.

In Young Rats, Researchers Find A Reaction To Spinal Cord Injury That Speeds Recovery

Wrathall says that the study gives new insight into nerve cell recovery that scientists can now explore. The researchers believe that the activated cells wrap nearby surviving axons with extra myelin sheathing in order to protect them and support their function following an injury. The researchers are unsure why young rats would be better at performing this function than older rats.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Clinic Using Questionable Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury

A clinic is using a controversial treatment for traumatic brain injury which involves treating patients in a high-pressure chamber of pure oxygen. The theory is that the increased oxygen levels help to enliven brain cells. The use of a high-pressure chamber is an accepted treatment for problems such as “the bends” or decompression sickness. Currently most medical institutes do not approve the use of hyperbaric oxygen for traumatic brain injury and coma. Doctors believe, “the problem [with the treatment] is that brain cells don’t regenerate. So even if you give them more oxygen, it’s not like they’re going to reproduce themselves."

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 06:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Man Sentenced in Car Accident

A man convicted of driving without a license was sentenced for his involvement in an accident which resulted in a man’s traumatic brain injury. The victim is currently confined to a wheelchair unable to work. Jacob Durham, a 28 year old, caused the accident. He had been driving on a continuously suspended license and was sentenced to two to three years jail time. Regarding the sentence the victim’s wife said, “I mean nothing will ever take back or give us our lives back, but they definitely did the best they could do.”

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 06:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed Against Wal-Mart

Representatives of a deceased construction worker have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Wal-Mart following a tragic construction accident. The claim calls for monetary damages and a jury trial to determine Wal-Mart’s role in his death. Scott Shelton died as a result of injuries which occurred as he was setting up the electrical system. A piece of metal fell causing an electrical arc which resulted in a fire causing Shelton to receive burns over 95% of his body. Shelton’s attorney’s are seeking damages including lost earnings, medical and funeral expenses, and money to care for Shelton’s nine-month-old daughter

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 02:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Helmet Pads Save Soldiers From IED

According to an I-Team investigation, American soldiers are suffering from serious brain injuries. Surprisingly, more troops have been killed because of blasts from IED’s (improvised explosive devices) than from guns. Besides the soldiers who are tragically killed in these blasts, many others live on with traumatic brain injuries. Injured soldiers often have to re-learn simple skills such as walking, talking and even standing. In addressing these concerns, the Pentagon researched extensively the affect of pads on soldiers helmets. Government officials found that padding helps prevent brain injuries and have sent padding to be added to over 800,000 helmets in the hopes of saving additional soldiers from traumatic brain injury or death.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 02:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Arctic Ground Squirrel Provides Insights Into Brain Injury Prevention

Scientists believe that the Arctic ground squirrel may provide insight into possible treatments for traumatic brain injury. While Arctic ground squirrels hibernate, their blood flow slows and they lose oxygen to the brain. This would typically cause brain injury, but the Arctic squirrel is able to avoid these injuries. According to Kelly Drew with the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said, “The Arctic ground squirrel is famous for being super cool . . . they just don’t display trauma to the brain.” Drew believes that researchers could use this research develop a treatment which would cause the human body to copy the ground squirrels resistance to traumatic brain injury.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 02:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sports Injuries Put Children At Risk for Brain Injury

A Health Report in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette warns athletes to be very careful when treating head injuries. Dr. Christie Seiler warns that “the effects of head injuries are cumulative, even if players have fully recovered from the previous injuries.” Over 309,322 people reported to emergency rooms in 2005 due to serious brain injuries. Not surprisingly, the sports with the greatest rates of injuries were cycling, football, basketball and baseball. Seiler encourages parents of children athletes to educate themselves and their children about the symptoms and risks of brain injury.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 02:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

QB's Injury a Concussion

Despite denials by the University of Florida medical staff, coach Urban Meyer, and quarterback Chris Leak, Leak suffered a concussion during the University of Florida Gators' 21-14 victory against Georgia last Saturday. The denials highlight the problem of not acknowledging concussions in competitive sports out of fears of reduced play time and games lost to recovery. Meyer said that Leak told him after the game that he thought he had had a concussion, but this statement was followed with numerous statements that Leak had only had a headache. "UF medical officials did not diagnose Leak with a concussion at any point [over the] weekend," said the University of Florida's Athletic Association on Monday.

Leak had symptoms of concussion

Leak clearly was not playing his best in the second half of the game, after the supposed concussion. He had three or four missed calls which led to the Gators wasting three timeouts. Nearly 99% of concussions go undiagnosed in football and the main reason for this is that players don't tell medical personnel when they are experiencing the symptoms of a concussion. Dr. Robert Cantu, a world renowned sports-concussion expert, said that Leak's symptoms pointed to a concussion because "if the onset on the symptoms was after a blow to the head, it was almost certainly a concussion."

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brain Injury Almost Immediate Following Injury

Scientists say that they have determined that brain injury can occur within 1 millisecond after striking a car's windshield during a traffic accident. Researchers from the Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico say that injury occurs before an overall movement of the head following impact; this is a new idea in the study of traumatic brain injury.

Brain wave interactions are studied

'In the past not a lot of attention was paid to modeling early time events during TBI,'' said Paul Taylor of Sandia's Multiscale Computational Materials Methods Department. TBI is associated with loss of functional capability of the brain to perform cognitive, motor and memory tasks. Taylor says that modeling brain injury is more humane that the traditional approach using lab animals.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brain Injury Association Calls Upon NFL To Make Changes

The president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State, Michal V. Kaplen, has strongly urged the National Football League commissioner, Roger Goodell to address the permanent brain injuries which have occurred because of teams policies surrounding when a player can return to the field following a traumatic brain injury. Kaplan is requesting that the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force hold hearings to examine the NFL’s policies.

Continue Reading, "President of New York State Brain Injury Association Calls Upon NFL Comissioner to Stop the Carnage"

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Repeat Concussions A Serious Problem

Concussions among U.S. troops in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are at extremely high levels because of the prevalence of bomb blasts. This is a result of a study done by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, who is focusing energy and resources in an effort to figure out how to treat concussions and other forms of traumatic brain injury. The effects of concussions are typically temporary and include a loss of consciousness, confusion and memory loss. A neurologist and acting director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center is concerned about the risk of serious injury from repeat concussions. “If you’re hurt, you’re not at 100 percent and you’re at risk for more injury….Statistically there’s a higher rate of brain injury in people who’ve already had a brain injury than there is in the general population.”

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Head Trauma Puts Troops at Risk for Greater Injury

According to Warren Lux, a neurologist and acting director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, a concussion places troops at greater risk for further injury. “If you’re hurt, you’re not at 100 percent and you’re at risk for more injury,” he said. According the the group, the risk of concussion to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is greater than in past wars because of the frequency of bomb blasts. The group currently is researching how to treat mild traumatic brain injury and how long troops should be allowed to recover before going back on duty.

Neurologist: Head trauma puts troops at risk for further injury

Concussions can cause a temporary lack of consciousness, confusion, and memory loss. Most people recover within a week and people who are not affected by permanent brain injury will have recovered by three months. However, while brain function may return to what is was prior to injury, the brain itself may not fully heal. “Statistically there’s a higher rate of brain injury in people who’ve already had a brain injury than there is in the general population,” Lux said.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New Guidelines to Treat Post-TBI Behavior Problems

New, evidence-based guidelines for the pharmacological treatment of traumatic brain injury-induced bahavior problems have been released in the Journal of Neurotrauma. Neurobehavioral disorders such as cognitive problems, aggression, and other psychiatric problems are common following TBI. Such problems can drastically affect an individual's ability to live normally following injury.

New Guidelines to Treat Behavior Problems Following Traumatic Brain Injury Published in Journal of Neurotrauma

The Guidelines Working Group reviewed medical literature and concluded that evidence was insufficient to support specific therapeutic standards but could be used to guide pharmacological treatment recommendations. The working group advises that future studies should guide future efforts to create treatment guidelines. "While the results of this critical assessment are disappointing, it does provide a valuable resource to the readership of the journal," says John T. Povlishock, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Neurotrauma. "This report should prove invaluable to those involved in the treatment of such patients, while inspiring them to conduct further well designed, randomized, controlled trials."

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Study Links SIDS to Brain Stem Defect

A recent study suggests that babies who die of sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS, may suffer from abnormalities in a brain region that controls breathing and heart rate. Because the cause of SIDS has been never before been pinpointed, this discovery was a major breakthrough. "SIDS is no longer a mysterious entity," says Marian Willinger, a SIDS specialist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Study links SIDS to brain stem problems

The findings are important in that they should be of comfort to parents who have had children die from SIDS; they now can find some reassurance in that SIDS is biologically related. SIDS is the abrupt death of babies under one year old and all other causes of death have been ruled out by medical examiners. Parents still are advised to encourage babies to sleep on their backs; this may help even in babies who are born with the defect.

Posted by Patricia Bowling at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Child Abuse May Change Brain Chemistry

A study on monkeys raised by abusive mothers provides evidence that growing up in an abusive household can change brain chemistry in a way that makes children more likely to abuse their own children when they grow up. The authors of the report say that abuse is not merely something learned from living with abusive parents, although that may have an influence. Childhood abuse appears to permanently lower the brain's production of serotonin, an important regulator of emotions.

Child Abuse May Alter Victims' Brain Chemistry, Study Shows

Low levels of serotonin can make people more likely to act aggressively, violently, and to reject others. While most children who are abused do not later become abusers themselves, this study explains why some victims of child abuse later mistreat their own children. "This suggests that children who early on have differences in their brain in terms of serotonin could be treated with some of these drugs and maybe these unwanted consequences could be avoided," said Dario Maestripieri, the study's lead author and an associate professor of comparative human development at the University of Chicago.

Blood Substitutes Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury

A new man made compound called Oxycyte is 50 times more efficient at carrying oxygen then regular blood. According to an article in Popular Science, this may be able to treat traumatic brain injury. Oxycyte is a product known as artificial blood. Since the early 19th century, doctors have searched for alternatives to blood to deal with tainted and short blood supplies. Scientists believe that Oxycyte may eventually be able to treat a broad range of injuries such as traumatic brain injury. This would be significant as currently there are very few treatments for TBI, some of which are oxygen and anti-inflammatories. This is a major problem in the U.S. as over 1.5 million Americans are victims of TBI every year.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Traumatic Brain Injury Dangerous to Young Athletes

Medical professionals believe that traumatic brain injury due to head injury is possible even if young athletes remain conscious. According to Dr. Teri McCambridge, a pediatrician with Orthopedic Associates, “Any trauma that causes any period of mental changes should be evaluated further.” McCambridge believes that the effect of multiple concussions is cumulative, especially with young athletes. Young athletes need to be especially cautious not to get a second concussion, as this can cause even more serious injuries or possibly death.

The idea that minor head injuries are not serious is a thing of the past. According to the assistant director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s sport concussion program, “There is no such thing as ‘just a bell ringer.’ Our study showed that many athletes with mild concussions …showed significant decline in memory processing and other symptoms within one week post-injury.”

The research suggests that if you notice a teen with symptoms of a concussion you need to keep your teen off the court or the field. If they return too early they are risking serious injury from a second concussion. Make sure the coach is aware of all of the young athletes recent concussions.

Posted by Ryan Jardine at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 30, 2006