Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Nov 2018
High-Speed Fluoroscopy to Measure Dynamic Spinal Cord Deformation in an In Vivo Rat Model.
Although spinal cord deformation is thought to be a predictor of injury severity, few researchers have investigated dynamic cord deformation, in vivo, during impact. This is needed to establish correlations among impact parameters, internal cord deformation, and histological and functional outcomes. Relying on surface deformations alone may not sufficiently represent spinal cord deformation. ⋯ Residual displacement of the internal beads was significantly greater than that of the surface beads in the cranial-caudal direction but not the dorsoventral direction. Finite element simulation confirmed that the additional bead mass likely had little effect on the internal cord deformations. These results support the merit of this technique for measuring in vivo spinal cord deformation.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Oct 2018
Short-Term Impact of Concussion in the NHL: An Analysis of Player Longevity, Performance, and Financial Loss.
Many studies have focused on the long-term impact of concussions in professional sports, but few have investigated short-term effects. This study examines concussion effects on individual players in the National Hockey League (NHL) by assessing career length, performance, and salary. Contracts, transactions, injury reports, and performance statistics from 2008-17 were obtained from the official NHL online publication. ⋯ Players scored 2.5 points/year less following a concussion. The total annualized financial impact from salary reductions after 1 concussion was $57.0 million, with a decrease of $292,000 per year in contract value per athlete. This retrospective study demonstrates that NHL concussions resulting in injury protocol activation lead to shorter career lengths, earnings reductions, and decreased performance when compared with non-concussed controls.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Oct 2018
Remote Changes in Cortical Excitability after Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury and Functional Reorganization.
Although cognitive and behavioral deficits are well known to occur following traumatic brain injury (TBI), motor deficits that occur even after mild trauma are far less known, yet are equally persistent. This study was aimed at making progress toward determining how the brain reorganizes in response to TBI. We used the adult rat controlled cortical impact injury model to study the ipsilesional forelimb map evoked by electrical stimulation of the affected limb, as well as the contralesional forelimb map evoked by stimulation of the unaffected limb, both before injury and at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks after using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). ⋯ The contralesional changes also were indicated by reduced SEP latency within 3 days after injury, but not by blood oxygenation level-dependent fMRI until much later. Detailed interrogation of cortical excitability using paired-pulse electrophysiology showed that the contralesional cortex undergoes both an early and a late post-injury period of hyper-excitability in response to injury, interspersed by a period of relatively normal activity. From these data, we postulate a cross-hemispheric mechanism by which remote cortex excitability inhibits ipsilesional activation by rebalanced cortical excitation-inhibition.
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Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is an important public health problem. Although conventional medical imaging techniques can detect moderate-to-severe injuries, they are relatively insensitive to mTBI. In this study, we used hybrid diffusion imaging (HYDI) to detect white matter alterations in 19 patients with mTBI and 23 other trauma control patients. ⋯ Specifically, in the control group, higher Vic and P0 were associated with better performances on clinical assessments, whereas in the mTBI group, higher Vic and P0 were associated with worse performances with correlation coefficients >0.83. In summary, the NODDI-derived axonal density index and q-space measure for tissue restriction demonstrated superior sensitivity to white matter changes shortly after mTBI. These techniques hold promise as a neuroimaging biomarker for mTBI.