Traumatic Brain Injury

Vitamins and Nutrients as Primary Treatments in Experimental Brain Injury

Vitamins and Nutrients as Primary Treatments in Experimental Brain Injury: Clinical Implications for Nutraceutical Therapies

SOURCE: Brain Res. 2015 (Dec 23) [Epub ahead of print]

Cole Vonder Haara, Todd C. Petersonb, Kris M. Martensa, Michael R. Hoanec

Restorative Neuroscience Laboratory
Department of Psychology,
Life Science II, MC 6502
Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, IL 62901, USA

With the numerous failures of pharmaceuticals to treat traumatic brain injury in humans, more researchers have become interested in combination therapies. This is largely due to the multimodal nature of damage from injury, which causes excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, edema, neuroinflammation and cell death. Polydrug treatments have the potential to target multiple aspects of the secondary injury cascade, while many previous therapies focused on one particular aspect. Of specific note are vitamins, minerals and nutrients that can be utilized to supplement other therapies. Many of these have low toxicity, are already FDA approved and have minimal interactions with other drugs, making them attractive targets for therapeutics.

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Brain Impact: Concussions, Chiropractic and New Laws

By Frank M. Painter|January 3, 2012|Concussion, Education, Traumatic Brain Injury|

Brain Impact: Concussions, Chiropractic and New Laws

The Chiro.Org Blog

SOURCE: Dynamic Chiropractic

By Robert “Skip” George, DC, CCSP, CSCS

Concussions are (finally) getting the attention of the athletic world, state governments and health care providers of all disciplines.

On Oct. 23, 2011, San Diego Chargers offensive guard Kris Dielman suffered a concussion during a football game against the New York Jets with 12:31 left to play.

He landed hard on the ground after a wicked collision with a Jets linebacker, then got up, wobbled and went back to playing the rest of the game, taking several more hits to the head. Neither the Chargers training staff nor the NFL referees recognized how serious his head injury was as he “waved off” his sideline training staff to return to the huddle. On the flight home to San Diego after the game, Dielman suffered a “grand mal” seizure and will most likely not play for the rest of the season.

Magnitude of the Problem

Concussions are getting much-needed attention in the press, especially given the short- and long-term cognitive loss, early-onset dementia, physical disability and even death resulting from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a chronic, degenerative neurologic disease linked to repetitive head trauma and is known as an invisible killer that can make a 35-year-old brain look more like 80 years old.

There are 250,000 concussions annually in football alone. The prevalence in high-school and college athletics is a major concern, especially considering how big, fast and strong high-school and college athletes have become, and how their play emulates the professionals. This “evolution” is exacting a terrible toll regarding TBI in not only football, but also soccer, hockey, wrestling, water polo and cheerleading.

Three Purdue University professors tracked 21 football players from Lafayette Jefferson High School in Indiana. For two years they kept a record of every hit in practice and during games. They found that half of the players had neurophysiologic changes from contact. They also discovered that the repetitive hits the players were receiving had a cumulative effect on the brain and resulted in brain wave changes that mimicked concussion, even when the contact did not result in a concussion!

Concussion Basics

What is a concussion? It can be defined as “a complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biomechanical forces” or “an immediate and transient loss of neuronal function secondary to trauma.” Signs and symptoms include but are not limited to thinking deficits, lack of sustained attention; amnesia; confused mental status; dazed look / vacant stare; slurred or incoherent speech; vomiting; nausea; emotional liability; slow motor or verbal response; memory deficits; poor coordination; dizziness; headache; restlessness; nervous weakness; exhaustion; and irritability. (more…)