Even Mild Traumatic Brain Injury May Cause Brain Damage

Even mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) may cause brain damage—including memory and cognition difficulty, according to a recent study.

In the study, 44 participants with mild TBI and 9 people with moderate TBI were compared to 33 individuals with no brain injury.
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“We studied patients who had suffered clinically mild injuries, often from common accidents such as falling from a bicycle, or slow speed car accidents. This finding is especially important, as 90% of all traumatic brain injuries are mild to moderate,” said Andrew Blamire, PhD, professor at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.

All participants took tests to gauge their thinking and memory skills. They also completed diffusion tensor imaging scans, an MRI designed to detect damage to brain cells and map fiber tracts that connect brain regions.

Individuals with brain injuries completed their scans 6 days after the injury. A year later, 23 of those with injuries had another scan and took the cognitive tests again.

Compared to the healthy individuals, those with injury had brain damage in white matter, which consisted of disruption to nerve axon (the part that allows brain cells to transmit messages to each other).

Investigators noted that patient scores on the verbal letter fluency task (the test for thinking and memory) were 25% lower than the healthy individuals; reserachers concluded that this was strongly related to the imaging measures of white matter damage.

One year after injury, the study found that thinking and memory tests were the same for those with and without brain injury; however, there was still areas of brain damage in people with injuries.

The complete study is published in the July issue of Neurology.

-Michelle Canales

References:

Croall ID, Cowie CJA, He J, et al. White matter correlates of cognitive dysfunction after mild traumatic brain injury. Neurology. 2014 July [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000666.

American Academy of Neurology. Even mild traumatic brain injury may cause brain damage. July 16, 2014. www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/1297. Accessed July 18, 2014