Overlooking mild traumatic brain injury may amount to ignoring a major health issue, researchers have warned.
Douglas Smith, director of the Centre for Brain Injury and Repair and professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and colleagues have been concentrating their efforts on mild TBI (mTBI), commonly called concussions. The experts said this ‘mild’ form of injury induced persisting neurological and cognitive problems in many patients, exacting an enormous emotional and financial toll on society.
Using advanced neuro-imaging techniques, the boffins found distinct changes throughout the white matter in the brain after injury.
Smith said, “This is not inconsequential. Indeed, the observation that brain pathology can be detected after a concussion calls for much more extensive efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat mild traumatic brain injury.” The team proposed a potential molecular mechanism to explain their findings.
