Australian scientists have used a new approach to determine the long-term impact of a single brain injury.
The Monash University-led research used blood tests and MRI scans to study traumatic brain injuries (TBI).
Senior author Professor Sandy Shultz the global study was one of a very few that looked on participants with moderate-severe TBI due to a single incident, that have also been living with their injury for an average of 22 years, as opposed to experiencing repetitive injury.
“Traditionally, TBI was viewed as an isolated event with a fixed recovery trajectory,” Professor Shultz said.
“Over the last decade, TBI has been redefined as a chronic, ongoing health condition. This redefinition is a crucial first step in overhauling our healthcare models, which presently allocate the bulk of resources to the immediate post-injury phase and leave long-term symptoms inadequately treated.”
He said their study integrated a range of techniques to understand the enduring consequences of moderate to severe TBI, including imaging to measure the integrity of the brain microstructure, blood biomarkers to determine ongoing brain pathology, and cognitive tests to understand how blood markers might be linked to a person’s cognitive health and clinical condition.
“Our finding of chronic pathology in the brains of traumatic brain injury survivors, and the ability to identify this with imaging and blood tests, not only provides us with methods to detect these changes but also a foundation to develop treatments that might prevent or slow evolving pathology and improve recovery.”
Professor Shultz said while TBI was a potential risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease, there was a critical need for comprehensive knowledge about long-term impacts.
He said this involved delineating the biological and clinical characteristics of any lasting neurodegeneration and identifying who was at risk, and then using this information to develop long-term management strategies.
