Concussion is serious, really

From ScienceDaily, Mild traumatic brain injury, not so mild after all. I've blogged before here and here about the negligent manner in which childhood concussion is often handled, especially at sporting events. ScienceDaily reports on the molecular mechanisms involved in mild brain injuries, as determined by a team led by Douglas Smith, MD, the director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair and professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

"Despite the prevalence and impact of mTBI, little is known about how mTBI affects nerve cells and connections in the brain, and therefore clinical outcomes after injury. Smith and colleagues have begun to amass data from human and animal studies on mTBI at 2-4 days after injury using advanced neuroimaging techniques. They have found distinct changes throughout the white matter in the brain. Also, protein markers of brain pathology were identified after mTBI in the blood of mTBI patients."

This is significant, especially in view of the greater importance ascribed to white matter and to disconnection syndromes in modern neuroscience.