According to a new story in the Journal Neurology,even mild traumatic brain injury may lead to memory problems according to Andrew Blamire, senior author and Professor of magnetic resonance physics at the Newcastle University’s Institute of Neuroscience.
“These results show that thinking skills were recovering over time. The areas of brain damage were not as widespread across the brain as previously thought, but focused in certain areas of the brain, which could indicate that the brain was compensating for the injuries. 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 Balmire.
According to reports, the researchers compared 53 people who had TBI (44 with mild TBI and nine with moderate TBI) with 33 individuals who had no brain injury whatsoever. TBI patients had their tests and scans done six days after the event. The participants thereafter underwent a series of memory and thinking skills tests followed by brain scans. Twenty-three of the participants then had another brain scan a year later.
All participants completed memory and thinking skills tests and underwent brain scans. The TBI patients had the tests and scans about 6 days after injury. Of these patients, 23 underwent the same tests and scans about a year later as aforementioned. Patients who had suffered TBIs scored on average 25% lower on a memory and thinking skills test that measures verbal fluency, and the researchers found this was strongly linked to extent of white matter damage according to reports on the Study. MRIs were used to conduct the brain scans with a focus on diffusion tensor imaging to detect brain cell damage more reliably than a normal MRI.
On further analysis of the results and scans, the researchers determined that in comparison to uninjured participants, those with mild or moderate TBI exhibited damage in the white matter of the brain which manifested itself as a disruption in the nerve axioms or the fibers which connect cells that relay messages.
“A year later, there was no difference in memory and thinking skills scores between the TBI patients and healthy participants, despite the scans of the TBI patients showing there were still some areas of brain damage”, the study reported..
The study was funded by the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust.
