Even Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Can Lead to Thinking Problems

Researchers have found that mild traumatic brain injury impacts cognitive abilities

The study led by researchers at the Newcastle University, United Kingdom, observed 44 people with mild traumatic brain injury, nine people with moderate traumatic brain injury and a control group of  33 people with no brain injury.

The participants were given memory skills and cognitive tests. Simultaneously they had diffusion tensor imaging scans in order to detect damage to the brain cells and help trace fiber tracts that link the brain region. Tensor imaging scan is a type of MRI that is more sensitive.

Those with brain injuries had scans done on an average of six days after the injury. After a year, 23 patients had another scan and also took up cognitive tests again.

When compared to people with no brain injury, those with injuries had disruptions to nerve axons, the region of the nerve cells that consists of white matter and which allows brain cells to transmit messages to each other.

On a standardized cognition test , the patients scored 25 percent lower than healthy people. "Most of the studies thus far have focused on people with severe and chronic traumatic brain injury," said study author Andrew Blamire, PhD, of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. "We studied patients who had suffered clinically mild injuries often from common accidents such as falling from a bicycle, or slow speed car accidents. This finding is especially important, as 90 percent of all traumatic brain injuries are mild to moderate."

A year after the injury, the scores on thinking and memory tests improved. But there still existed areas of brain damage in people with injuries.

 "These results show that thinking skills were recovering over time," Blamire said. "The areas of brain damage were not as widespread across the brain as previously, but focused in certain areas of the brain, which could indicate that the brain was compensating for the injuries."

The finding was documented in the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.