Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 29 (HealthDay News) -- A drug that's typically used to treat the flu and Parkinson's disease appears to speed recovery in traumatic brain injury patients, a new study indicates. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) victims who weren't fully conscious and were discharged to rehabilitation facilities after hospitalization were given amantadine hydrochloride. The drug is already given "off-label" to such patients, but if and how much it helps has remained unclear. While taking the drug, the patients given amantadine scored better on behavioral tests that measure how well the brain is functioning compared to a group of patients given a placebo, researchers report in the March 1 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. "Amantadine appeared to increase the rate of recovery compared to placebo. Patients got better faster while they were on the drug," said study co-author Joseph Giacino, director of rehabilitation neuropsychology at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, in Boston, and an associate professor in the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. Study co-author Dr. John Whyte, director of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute at Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, in the Philadelphia area, said previous observational studies had suggested amantadine improved the rate of … Continue reading →

A drug used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease also speeds recovery from severe traumatic brain injuries, a new study has found. Amantadine helps boost brain levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to arousal. And for patients who are in a vegetative state following a brain injury, the drug can help -- possibly by improving responsiveness during rehabilitation. "There are clear benefits to getting patients from point A to point B faster and relieving some of those initial deficits more quickly," said study author Joseph Giacino, director of rehabilitation neuropsychology at Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. "If you talk to a patient's family, you'll know what it means for them to be able to communicate sooner." Giacino and colleagues followed 184 patients with "disorders of consciousness" following traumatic brain injuries sustained up to 16 weeks previously. Eighty-seven patients received amantadine for four weeks during their inpatient rehabilitation, while the rest received a placebo. Four weeks is typical for acute inpatient rehabilitation in the U.S. "Over the four-week course of treatment, the amantadine group clearly outpaced the placebo group in terms of their rate of improvement," said Giacino. The study was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. When … Continue reading →

NEW YORK (AP) -- Researchers are reporting the first treatment to speed recovery from severe brain injuries caused by falls and car crashes: a cheap flu medicine whose side benefits were discovered by accident decades ago. Severely injured patients who were given amantadine got better faster than those who received a dummy medicine. After four weeks, more people in the flu drug group could give reliable yes-and-no answers, follow commands or use a spoon or hairbrush things that few of them could do at the start. Far fewer patients who got amantadine remained in a vegetative state, 17 percent versus 32 percent. "This drug moved the needle in terms of speeding patient recovery, and that's not been shown before," said neuropsychologist Joseph Giacino of Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, co-leader of the study. He added: "It really does provide hope for a population that is viewed in many places as hopeless." Many doctors began using amantadine for brain injuries years ago, but until now there's never been a big study to show that it works. The results of the federally funded study appear in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. A neurologist who wasn't involved in the research called it an … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2012) — Several specific regions of our brains are activated in a two-part process when we are exposed to deceptive advertising, according to new research conducted by a North Carolina State University professor. The work opens the door to further research that could help us understand how brain injury and aging may affect our susceptibility to fraud or misleading marketing. The study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to capture images of the brain while study participants were shown a series of print advertisements. The fMRI images allowed researchers to determine how consumers' brains respond to potentially deceptive advertising. "We did not instruct participants to evaluate the ads. We wanted to mimic the passive exposure to advertising that we all experience every day," says Dr. Stacy Wood, Langdon Distinguished Professor of Marketing at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. Participants were exposed to three pre-tested advertisements that were deemed "highly believable," "moderately deceptive" or "highly deceptive." The ads were also pre-tested to ensure that they were for products that consumers found equally interesting and desirable -- leaving the degree of deception as the only significant variable. "We found that people have a two-stage … Continue reading →

Patrick Donohue has been doing the math, but he can't get it to add up: Brain injury is the biggest cause of death and disabilities for kids and young adults by a large margin, sending more than 765,000 young Americans to the emergency room every year. So why, he wonders, does funding for it lag so far behind most everything? Other numbers puzzle him, too. Like this one: Why can 10 trips to 10 doctors yield 10 different treatment plans if so many kids — and adults, too — have brain injuries? He describes treatment as frequently "arbitrary and random." Donohue has become an expert on traumatic brain injury, something he never knew much about until the baby nurse he and his wife hired to help when his daughter Sarah Jane was born instead shook her when she was 5 days old, resulting in four broken ribs, two broken collarbones and severe brain damage. Six years later, Donohue figures his job "is to change the world for her. She walks with assistance. She can't do any of those functions by herself." So he uses the experience from what seems like a former life as a political consultant to raise money … Continue reading →

Patrick Donohue has been doing the math, but he can't get it to add up: Brain injury is the biggest cause of death and disabilities for kids and young adults by a large margin, sending more than 765,000 young Americans to the emergency room every year. So why, he wonders, does funding for it lag so far behind most everything? Other numbers puzzle him, too. Like this one: Why can 10 trips to 10 doctors yield 10 different treatment plans if so many kids — and adults, too — have brain injuries? He describes treatment as frequently "arbitrary and random." Donohue has become an expert on traumatic brain injury, something he never knew much about until the baby nurse he and his wife hired to help when his daughter Sarah Jane was born instead shook her when she was 5 days old, resulting in four broken ribs, two broken collarbones and severe brain damage. Six years later, Donohue figures his job "is to change the world for her. She walks with assistance. She can't do any of those functions by herself." So he uses the experience from what seems like a former life as a political consultant to raise money … Continue reading →

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A Dutch prince hit by an avalanche while skiing in Austria last week has suffered massive brain damage and may never regain consciousness, his doctors said Friday. Johan Friso, the second of Dutch Queen Beatrix's three sons, was buried for 25 minutes before rescuers found him. It then took nearly 50 minutes to resuscitate the prince after he was pulled from the snow, time that may have caused permanent damage, said Dr. Wolfgang Koller, head of trauma at the Innsbruck hospital where the prince is being treated. "It is clear that the oxygen starvation has caused massive brain damage to the patient," Koller said. "At the moment, it cannot be predicted if he will ever regain consciousness." The 41-year-old Friso, who is married and has two young daughters, will be moved later to a rehabilitation clinic for further treatment. But Koller cautioned it may take years before he awakens from his coma — if he ever does — and any recovery from such significant brain damage is a process of "months or even years." Friso was skiing off-trail in Lech, Austria, despite avalanche warnings, with a childhood friend from the alpine village. The Dutch royal family has … Continue reading →

Editor's Choice Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience Article Date: 22 Feb 2012 - 5:00 PST email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions   Current Article Ratings: Patient / Public: Healthcare Prof: A study in rats has found that a new medication called clazosentan, may be effective in blocking the harmful effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012. Michael Kaufman, study author, a second year medical student at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, and member of the American Academy of Neurology, explained: "There are currently no primary treatments for TBI, so this research provides hope that effective treatments can be developed." Christian Kreipke, MD, also with Wayne State University School of Medicine, is lead researcher on the study. TBI results in restricted blood flow in the cerebrum of the brain, which can ultimately cause permanent cell dysfunction and death. As early as four hours following a brain injury, a receptor in the brain called endothelin receptor A (ETrA) contributes to decreasing blood flow. Scientists believe that the new drug clazosentan specifically blocks ETrA. Through … Continue reading →

Public release date: 22-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Rhiannon Bugno Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu 214-648-0880 Elsevier Philadelphia, PA, February 22, 2012 ? Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are cardinal injuries associated with combat stress, and TBI increases the risk of PTSD development. The reasons for this correlation have been unknown, in part because physical traumas often occur in highly emotional situations. However, scientists at University of California at Los Angeles provide new evidence from an animal model of a mechanistic link underlying the association between TBI and PTSD-like conditions. Using procedures to separate the physical and emotional traumas, Dr. Maxine Reger and colleagues trained rats using fear conditioning techniques two days after the rats had a concussive brain trauma. This ensured the brain injury and experience of fear occurred on different days. Dr. Michael Fanselow explained their findings: "We found that the rats with the earlier TBI acquired more fear than control rats (those without TBI). Something about the brain injury rendered them more susceptible to acquiring an inappropriately strong fear. It was as if the injury primed the brain for learning to be afraid." To further understand why this happened, the researchers analyzed a … Continue reading →

Experimental Drug Helps Reduce Brain Injury A drug that targets blood vessels in the brain shows promise in animal tests. Wednesday, February 22, 2012 By Courtney Humphries It's estimated that five million people in the U.S. suffer from the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI)—which can range from coma to loss of movement to cognitive and behavioral problems. A large percentage of soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan have sustained some form of TBI. Scientists have been searching for years for drugs that could ameliorate the effects of these injuries, but so far, none have been shown to prevent damage or speed healing. Researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit are investigating a drug that they hope could prevent the damage of TBI by improving blood flow to the brain. So far, the drug, called clazosentan, has shown promise in animal tests in improving recovery after a blow to the head. Christian Kreipke, the lead author of a study describing the tests, says that most experimental TBI treatments have targeted two problems in the injured brain: dangerous swelling of the brain, and structural damage to neurons. In contrast, his team is trying to prevent a third side effect of … Continue reading →