Articles: traumatic-brain-injuries.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Nov 2015
Evaluation of Cortical Thickness Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Military Veterans.
Military service members frequently sustain traumatic brain injuries (TBI) while on active duty, a majority of which are related to explosive blasts and are mild in severity. Studies evaluating the cortical gray matter in persons with injuries of this nature remain scarce. The purpose of this study was to assess cortical thickness in a sample of military veterans with chronic blast-related TBI. ⋯ Cortical thickness values correlated with measures of PTSD, depression, and post-concussive symptoms. This study provides evidence of cortical thinning in the context of chronic blast-related mild and moderate TBI in military veterans who have comorbid psychiatric symptoms. Our findings provide important insight into the natural progression of long-term cortical change in this population and may have implications for future clinical evaluation and treatment.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Nov 2015
Preclinical Traumatic Brain Injury Common Data Elements: Towards a Common Language Across Laboratories.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health issue exacting a substantial personal and economic burden globally. With the advent of "big data" approaches to understanding complex systems, there is the potential to greatly accelerate knowledge about mechanisms of injury and how to detect and modify them to improve patient outcomes. High quality, well-defined data are critical to the success of bioinformatics platforms, and a data dictionary of "common data elements" (CDEs), as well as "unique data elements" has been created for clinical TBI research. ⋯ To address this gap, a committee of experts was tasked with creating a defined set of data elements to further collaboration across laboratories and enable the merging of data for meta-analysis. The CDEs were subdivided into a Core module for data elements relevant to most, if not all, studies, and Injury-Model-Specific modules for non-generalizable data elements. The purpose of this article is to provide both an overview of TBI models and the CDEs pertinent to these models to facilitate a common language for preclinical TBI research.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Nov 2015
Influence of age on cerebral housekeeping gene expression for normalization of quantitative PCR after acute brain injury in mice.
To prevent methodological errors of quantitative PCR (qPCR) normalization with reference genes is obligatory. Although known to influence gene expression, impact of age on housekeeping gene expression has not been determined after acute brain lesions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI). Therefore, expression of eight common control genes was investigated at 15 min, 24 h, and 72 h after experimental TBI in 2- and 21-month-old C57Bl6 mice. ⋯ With respect to insult and age, normalization strategies should consider cyclophilin A as a single normalizer. Normalization with two reference genes is recommended with cyclophilin A and HPRT in young mice and in mixed age studies and with cyclophilin A and GAPDH in old mice. In addition, the present study suggests not to use β2-microglobulin, β-actin or PBGD as single control genes because of strong regulation after CCI in 2- and 21-month-old mice.
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World J Crit Care Med · Nov 2015
Therapeutic temperature modulation is associated with pulmonary complications in patients with severe traumatic brain injury.
To examine complications associated with the use of therapeutic temperature modulation (mild hypothermia and normothermia) in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). ⋯ Exposure to TTM is associated with an increase in pulmonary complications. These findings support more attention to these complications in studies of TTM in TBI patients.
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To determine the incidence, predictors, and outcomes of generalized convulsive status epilepticus (GCSE) in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. ⋯ Despite its low incidence, GCSE in TBI patients was associated with worse outcomes with threefold higher in-hospital mortality, prolonged hospitalization, higher hospital charges, and worse discharge disposition. Surprisingly, epilepsy is a negative predictor of GCSE in this population.