Dr. Paul Baek, For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 1:32 p.m. CT March 6, 2017 | Updated 17 hours ago Dr. Paul Baek(Photo: Provided) Question: How big a deal is Brain Injury Awareness Month? Answer: Its a big deal, because were not talking about it frequently enough. Brain injury is often referred to as a silent epidemic because few people know about it, despite the eye-opening number of people injured each year. RELATED:Ask A Doctor: Facts about multiple sclerosis SUBSCRIBE:Follow us today on YouTube More than 3.5 million people experience a brain injury each year, according to the Brain Injury Association of America. An estimated 12 million Americans live with the impact of such an injury. A brain injury can occur anytime our head is subjected to a strong bump, blow, jolt or penetrating injury that interrupts the normal function of the brain. Some brain injuries are traumatic, such as a head injury sustained during a car crash. Some are the result ofnon-traumatic causes like drowning, stroke or infection. Others are less severe, but may still cause disturbances in normal brain function, as experienced during a concussion. Creating awareness of brain injuries and how to prevent them is critical. Given that … Continue reading →

David Poulsen, PhD, professor of translational neuroscience in the Department of Neurosurgery, has received $966,000 in private funding to further study a novel neuroprotective agent for moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Poulsens previous work on developing therapies to treat injuries to the central nervous system strongly suggest that phenoxybenzamine is highly neuroprotective when given within eight hours after a severe TBI. Phenoxybenzamine is an FDA-approved treatment for humans and animals to reduce hypertension and excessive sweating associated with adrenal tumors, but Poulsen says it may also may exert a neuroprotective effect by reducing neuroinflammation after TBI. Poulsens new study titled Preclinical Therapeutic Window Study of Phenoxybenzamine in Moderate-Severely Injured TBI Rats encompasses several goals: This will define how long after injury phenoxybenzamine can be given and still produce a beneficial effect, Poulsen says. This will provide us with a comprehensive picture of the neuropathology that occurs in the brain following TBI and help us to understand what molecular mechanisms are involved in phenoxybenzamine-mediated neuroprotection, Poulsen says. TBI is a national health concern that affects more than 1.7 million individuals each year in the United States. Of further concern is the lack of effective treatments to reduce the primary or secondary … Continue reading →

How did a Massachusetts woman end up with two electrodes implanted into her brain? Why is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developing a controversial, cutting-edge brain chip technology that could one day treat everything from major depressive disorder to hand cramps? How did we get to deep brain stimulation and where do we go from here? In 1848, a rail foreman named Phineas Gage was clearing a railroad bend in Vermont when a blast hole exploded, sending the tamping iron he had been using to pack explosives through his left cheek, his brains left frontal lobe and finally out the top of his skull before landing 25 yards away, stuck upright in the dirt. Despite his pulverized brain mass, Gage went on to make a full recovery, with the exception of a blinded left eye. It was, by all accounts, miraculous. But while Gage could walk and talk, those who knew him found that after the accident he seemed, well, different. A local physician who treated him the day of the accident observed that the equilibrium ... between his intellectual faculties and his animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. His friends put it more simply: Gage, they said, … Continue reading →