Traumatic Brain Injury Blog

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Tagged with “Depression”

July 7, 2022

Early Mental Health Intervention Improves TBI Outcomes

Victims of mild traumatic brain injury (“mTBI”) commonly report psychological distress, which is not surprising given the impact the injury can have on every aspect of everyday life including but not limited to balance, vision, sleeping, physical discomfort including headaches, and perhaps most significantly thinking clearly. Patients often report that they are not the same person and fear that person will never return.

We often recommend counseling support, but this has been based more on instinct and anecdotal information than on data. In prior posts we have reported on studies showing that depression is a common sequelae of mTBI that should be treated before it becomes disabling.  Read More

March 1, 2022

Study published by the American Academy of Neurology Finds that Poor Cognitive Outcomes Following Concussion are more Common than Previously Thought

A new study published February 16, 2022 by the American Academy of Neurology in the Journal “Neurology” finds that the frequency of clinically meaningful poor cognitive outcomes one year after a concussion are more common than previously thought.  The results, says study author Raquel Gardner, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, “highlight the need to better understand the mechanisms underlying poor cognitive outcome, even after relatively mild brain injuries, to improve therapy for recovery.” Read More

January 7, 2020

Gut Microbiota as a Compelling Therapeutic Avenue for Traumatic Brain Injury

In a recent review the literature, researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research identified the establishment of a protective gut microbiota as a “compelling therapeutic avenue” for the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI).

In a January 23, 2018 post this author summarized evidence that a TBI can trigger pathology in the Gut-Brain Axis and increase infections.  The Walter Reed researchers dive deeper into this issue. Summarizing the research, they explain that “brain injury induces disruptions in the composition of the gut microbiota, i.e. gut dysbiosis, which has been shown to contribute to TBI-related neuropathology and impaired behavioral outcomes.” (emphasis added.) Read More

September 6, 2018

JAMA Publishes New Study Showing that TBI Increases the Risk of Suicide

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to traumatic brain injuries, of all levels of severity, as an important risk factor for suicide.

The significance of the study is discussed in an opinion in the same issue of JAMA.  Both the increased risk of suicide and the prevalence of depression following TBI have been discussed in prior posts in this blog. Read More

May 31, 2018

Cognitive Training Reduces Depression and Changes Brain Structure in Individuals with Chronic TBI Symptoms

Research scientists at the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas have just published a study, funded by the US Department of Defense, supporting the effectiveness of “strategy-based” cognitive training at reducing symptoms of depression commonly found in patients with chronic (greater than 6 months) traumatic brain injury (TBI) symptoms.

The training was an integrative program designed to improve cognitive control by exerting more efficient thinking strategies for selective attention and abstract reasoning. The training did not directly target psychiatric symptoms such as depression, but was nonetheless effective at reducing those symptoms. Read More

April 18, 2018

Depression following Concussion is Highly Prevalent and Needs to Be Monitored and Treated

A new study published in the Journal of Neurotrauma highlights the importance of monitoring TBI patients for the presence of depression symptoms and providing clinical support to prevent minor depression from converting into major depression.

Canadian researchers assessed 236 individuals diagnosed with traumatic brain injury at 4, 8 and 12 months following injury. The results confirm prior studies showing that depression in very prevalent following TBI. Read More

March 7, 2018

Concussions Can Impair Emotional Processing During Sleep Contributing to Chronic Mood Disturbance

As discussed in prior posts on this blog, sleep alterations are commonly found after a concussion or other traumatic brain injury, both short term and in some cases long term. One of the most well documented impacts of concussion, also discussed in prior posts, is an increased risk of mood disturbances, including depression, increased anxiety and increased risk of suicide. In recent years researchers have turned to sleep studies to explore the connection between these symptoms.

There is substantial evidence in the literature of the role healthy sleep plays in the “consolidation” of emotional memories. At first blush, this research is counter-intuitive. If sleep “consolidates” emotional memories, doesn’t this have the potential to increase rather than decrease mood disturbance? The answer appears to be that, although sleep preserves memory of events associated with emotional experience, at the same time it weakens the emotional “charge” coating the experience (referred to in the literature as “valence”) in a process called “habituation.” As one researcher hypothesized, “we sleep to forget the emotional tone, yet sleep to remember the tagged information.” Read More

August 17, 2017

Concussion Can Cause Abnormalities in Organ Systems Through Autonomic Nervous System Dysfunction

The open source journal Brain Science has just published a survey of literature demonstrating that a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) , otherwise known as concussion, is a complex pathophysiological process that can have a systemic effect on the body aside from solely impairing cognitive function. According to the article, “dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been found to be a major factor in the symptomatology in TBI, including in mTBI” and can “induce abnormalities in organ systems throughout the body.” Read More

May 18, 2016

New Guidance on Assessing Neuroendocrine Dysfunction following TBI

In our May, 2014 post,  we reported on research showing that traumatic brain injury, including mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI),  can damage and cause dysfunction in the pituitary gland resulting in deficiencies in key hormones released by the pituitary gland, such as Growth Hormone (GH). As we explained in that post, the anatomy of the pituitary gland makes it particularly susceptible to the sheering injuries seen in TBI.  These hormone deficiencies can produce many of the persistent symptoms seen following a TBI, such as fatigue, poor memory, depression, anxiety, emotional lability, exercise intolerance, lack of concentration and attention difficulties. (Although not always the case, these deficiencies can also produce physical symptoms, such as increased fat mass – especially in the abdominal area – and increased cholesterol.)  We also noted findings showing that pituitary dysfunction can worsen over the five year period following an injury – in other words, that this is an issue that deserves to be monitored on an ongoing basis. Read More