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On December 22, 2013 researchers working in Tel Aviv led by Dr. Haggai Sharon reported that patients in long term vegetative coma might be able to recognize familiar faces. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they looked at brain activity in both healthy and vegetative subjects. First they showed both groups pictures of
War veteran Michael Sorenson who lives in the Chicago area was subjected to 4 separate blast injuries from IEDs in his service for the U.S. military in Iraq leaving him with TBI, PTSD, a spinal fracture, and severe depression. He received help in the form of Bane, a Pit Bull that was saved
A research breakthrough in therapy to restore functional brain cells after TBI was just reported in the journal Cell Stem Cell on December 19, 2013. The discovery was announced by biologist Gong Cheng and his colleagues at Penn State University. Dr. Cheng was aware that after TBI glial cells rush to the area
A significant majority of people with TBI suffer from night-time insomnia and day-time fatigue. New research published in December 2013 by a group led by Akiva S. Cohen, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), may point the way to treatment. Dr. Cohen, in collaboration with other experts, induced TBI
Mild TBI can occur to civilians from falls or car crashes and to military personnel from explosions which send shock waves through the brain. The microscopic damage to the brain that accompanies mild TBI is not visible on CT scans and standard MRIs. Because of this people with mild TBI are often dismissed
Up until now it has not been possible to visualize the effects of mild TBI on an MRI scan because standard MRI only picks up significant damage to brain tissue. However a new technique using MRI following injection of dye can demonstrate tiny holes in the meninges caused by a concussion, because the
In the February 2013 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Dr. Gary Smalls and colleagues published research on their use of PET scans to search for abnormal deposits of tau protein in the brains of living people. Excessive tau has been correlated medically with such degenerative brain conditions as Alzheimer’s disease
Marie Dahdah, PhD, an investigator at the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation in Texas, published a study 21 brain injury rehab centers in the United States in December 2013. Each of the centers was part of a national model systems program. At the outset of the study Dr. Dahdah expected to find fairly uniform
Severe depression with insomnia and fatigue is relatively common following TBI. In patients with severe depression who were undergoing therapy and taking anti-depressants but showed only limited improvement, adding the wakefulness drug Modafinil produced a better outcome. This was especially true for the depressed patients in a group of 1,010 depressed patients for
In the September 2013 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Dr. David Cook of VA Puget Sound Health Care System and University of Washington described some startling findings. Dr. Cook and his co-researcher Dr. Ibolja Cernak of the University of Alberta subjected mice to isolated shock waves similar to the kind suffered