Tagged with “neurodegenerative process”
September 17, 2020
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
January 2, 2018
Although the primary focus of this blog is on “traumatic” brain injury, the literature increasingly demonstrates that the physiological causes of cognitive impairment overlap between a range of conditions having neurodegenerative consequences, including TBI, PTSD, Alzheimer’s disease and “Chemobrain”. (Chronic inflammation appears to be one of the common variables, as discussed in prior posts.) Read More
January 21, 2016
On January 16, 2016 the University of Pennsylvania announced the findings of a unique team studying concussion science, consisting of a professor of materials science and engineering and a professor of neurosurgery (also director of Penn Center for Brain Injury and Repair.) Read More
April 8, 2015
A new study published in the Annals of Neurology – the official journal of the American Neurological Association – adds further evidence in support of our growing understanding that TBI, especially moderate/severe TBI or repetitive mild TBI, often triggers a “progressive neurodegenerative process” that accelerates over time. As discussed in prior posts, TBI is now conceptualized as potentially a chronic disease triggered by injury, not as an isolated event. Hopefully this understanding will lead in the future to interventions designed to halt or slow the disease process.
The recent study, published in the April 2015 issue, reports on the results of research at the Imperial College London, where brain scans of over 1500 healthy people were analyzed to develop a computer program that could predict a person’s age from their brain scan. The program was then used to estimate the “brain age” of 113 more healthy people and 99 people who had suffered TBIs. The brains of the TBI patients were on average five years older than their real age would predict. Read More
