Experts use MRI to pinpoint link between pediatric TBI and cognitive impairment
Experts recently found reduced brain volumes in pediatric patients who had previously sustained serious head injuries.
New work published in Brain details how researchers concluded that both gray and white matter volumes decrease relative to head size during adolescent development. These findings were associated with certain cognitive and emotional impairments—a correlation that has been difficult to conclude in pediatric populations, first author Niall Bourke, from the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, and colleagues shared:
“In adults, traumatic brain injury produces progressive brain atrophy that can be accurately measured and is associated with cognitive decline. However, the effect of pediatric traumatic brain injury on brain volumes is more challenging to measure because of its interaction with normal brain development.”
The analysis consisted of more than 1,200 brain MRI scans of children aged 8 to 22. The majority of the scans were on healthy controls from which researchers were able to develop baseline measurements of healthy brain volumes. These measurements were also taken on 39 patients who had sustained moderate/severe traumatic brain injuries during childhood before being compared to age-matched healthy controls. Neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric assessments were also completed via standardized testing.
TBI patients displayed reductions of both gray and white matter on imaging in comparison to their peers. At least one white matter tract with reduced volume—most often in midline white matter structures including the corpus callosum—was observed in 28% of TBI patients, and 18% displayed similar findings in gray matter tracts.
Those with lower brain volumes were also reported to have slower processing speeds, emotional impairment, learning difficulties, increased apathy and anger.
“These individualized assessments of volume can provide some understanding of related cognitive function following TBI. Alongside other clinical tools, age-specific volume estimates can aid the clinical picture of an injury to better understand the individual case."
More on traumatic brain injuries:
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Reference:
Niall J Bourke, Célia Demarchi, Sara De Simoni, Ravjeet Samra, Maneesh C Patel, Adam Kuczynski, Quen Mok, Neil Wimalasundera, Fareneh Vargha-Khadem, David J Sharp. Brain volume abnormalities and clinical outcomes following paediatric traumatic brain injury. Brain, 2022; https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awac130
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.