Traumatic Brain Injury Blog

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TBI In Sports

September 17, 2020

Damage to the Brain’s Lymphatic System May Explain Why Some Patients Suffer More Serious Consequences from TBI

Studies over the last several years have shown that the lymphatic system serving the brain, located in the membranes covering the brain (the “meninges”) plays an important role in brain injury recovery.

As most people know, the lymphatic system helps to rid the body of toxins and waste, including the byproducts of the body’s immune response to injury. For brain injury this is sometimes described as “damage/danger-associated molecular patterns” – “DAMPs” – such as protein aggregates, necrotic cells, and cellular debris.

Researchers at the University of Virginia, at the Center for Brain Immunology and Glia, have released an important study furthering our understanding of the role meningeal lymphatic dysfunction plays in causing some patients to suffer severe and long-lasting impairments following even a “mild” traumatic brain injury (TBI) and helps to explain why these injuries increase the risk for neurodegenerative problems such as Alzheimer’s, ALS and dementia. Read More

April 16, 2019

Dartmouth Study Recognizes LoveYourBrain Yoga as an Effective Tool for Community Based Rehabilitation For People with Traumatic Brain Injury

Funded by the Brain Injury Association of New Hampshire, a group of researchers at Dartmouth assessed the effectiveness of the program by conducting semi-structured interviews of 13 participants with traumatic brain injury and 3 caregivers who had completed the 6 week, 6 session program.  The results are published in the February, 2019 issue of Disability Rehabilitation.

Kevin Pearce, a Vermont resident and world leading professional snowboarder, suffered a near fatal traumatic brain injury while training for the 2010 winter Olympics. Kevin’s remarkable resilience since his injury has inspired millions through the award-winning HBO documentary, The Crash Reel. Read More

December 10, 2018

New Evidence Shows that One Season of High School Football Can Cause Microstructural Changes in the Brain

Researchers from Berkeley, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Arizona used a new type of MRI called “diffusion kurtosis imaging” (“DKI”) to take brain scans of 16 high school football players, ages 15 to 17, before and after a single season of football. DKI is an extension of Diffusion Tensor Imaging, (DTI) discussed in prior posts. Early studies suggest that it outperforms DTI in capturing certain microstructural changes in the brain. The football players who were scanned all wore helmets and none of them were diagnosed with a concussion. The researchers also measured head impact exposure during every practice and game using the Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) system, which has been widely used in other head impact studies. The study, which is the cover story of the November issue of the journal Neurobiology of Disease, is one of the first to look at how impact sports affect the brains of children at this age.

Read More

May 2, 2018

Differences in Axonal Structure Likely Contributing to Increased Vulnerability of Women to Concussions

Although males represent a majority of emergency department visits for sports and recreation-related concussion, researchers have recently found that female athletes have a higher rate of concussion and appear to have worse outcomes than their male counterparts participating in the same sport. University of Pennsylvania researchers have recently identified anatomical differences between male and female axons that may explain this increased vulnerability. Read More

September 29, 2016

Continuing to Play Following Concussion Can Prolong Recovery And Expose Athletes to Catastrophic Second Impact Syndrome

There’s new evidence supporting immediate removal of athletes from play following concussion.

A new study published in the September, 2016 issue of Pediatrics provides evidence that returning to play immediately following a sports related concussion, even without a “second impact” nearly doubles, on average, the length of time required to recover and exposes athletes to a greater risk of protracted symptoms. As the authors point out in their report, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council stated in 2013 that

“the culture of sports negatively influences SRC [sports related concussion] reporting and that athletes, coaches, and parents do not fully acknowledge the risks of playing while injured.”

Read More

September 3, 2015

Controversy Surrounds Release of Trailer For “Concussion,” starring Will Smith, to Be Released in December, 2015

Sony Pictures has made a movie about the devastating long term effects of concussion in professional football players, and the NFL’s efforts to cover this up. Will Smith stars as Nigerian doctor Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who first discovered the prevalence in players of a degenerative disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). A trailer for the movie has just been released and can be seen here.

This movie promises to bring even greater public attention to the growing body of evidence, discussed in many past posts in this blog,  demonstrating that concussion can in some cases trigger a chronic degenerative process with permanent consequences.  Read More

February 3, 2015

Safety Helmets and Seatbelts – Key to Protecting Children and Adolescents from Serious Brain Injury

The New England Journal of Medicine has published the most exhaustive analysis to date of brain injury in children and adolescents.  The results reinforce the critical importance of safety helmets for children under 12 and the importance of safety helmets and seatbelts for adolescents.

The data analyzed in the study was from over 40,000 pediatric brain injuries. The most common cause of trauma in children under 12 was falls, often from bicycles.  Motor vehicle accidents, sports injuries and assaults were the most frequent mechanisms of injury among adolescents. Read More

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December 8, 2014

New Research Identifies Reliable Biomarker of Permanent Brain Damage following Concussion

Findings released on November 25, 2014 in the Journal of Neurotrauma indicate that the presence of a blood protein known as SNTF shortly after a sports-related concussion can predict the severity of post-concussion symptoms in professional athletes.

The authors of the study – Robert Simon, PhD, and Douglas H. Smith, MD, professor of neurosurgery and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania – noted upon release of this study of SNTF in concussion patients that

“these observations lend further support to the growing awareness that concussion is not trivial, since it can induce permanent brain damage in some individuals.” Read More

August 28, 2014

NCAA Settles Concussion Class Action Lawsuit

Good News for Future Players, Bad News for Past and Current Players Left to Seek Compensation on an Individual Basis

On July 29, 2014, the NCAA and representatives of college athletes announced an agreement to settle a concussion class action lawsuit that came on the heels of a similar lawsuit against the NFL.  The settlement will need to be approved by the Court, a process that could take several months. It is anticipated that several former athletes experiencing the long-term effects of concussions suffered in college sports will object to the settlement, since it does not provide any direct compensation – unlike the proposed settlement in the NFL case. Players with concussion claims are left to pursue those claims on an individual basis. Read More