Preventing Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects tens of millions of people worldwide each year with about 5 million deaths. For those who survive there is often permanent neurological impairment. TBI is therefore a serious public health issue that needs to be addressed. The largest international study of TBI was recently published in Nature Medicine , providing some insight into how best to approach the issue. For background, TBI is exactly what it sounds like – traumatic injury to the brain. This is mostly from external forces to the head, rather than something happening inside the skull, resulting from either something hitting the head or the head hitting something. The brain is a soft jelly-like organ essentially floating in cerebrospinal fluid inside the skull. When such an injury occurs the brain impacts the inside of the skull on the side of the injury, but then can whip back and hit the other side as well (so-called coup contrecoup injury). This can cause surface bruising on the brain.

Traumatic brain injury, TBI, affects tens of millions of people worldwide each year with about 5 million deaths. For those who survive, there is often permanent neurological impairment. TBI is therefore a serious public health issue that needs to be addressed. The largest international study of TBI was recently published in Nature Medicine providing some insight into how best to approach the issue. For background, TBI is exactly what it sounds like, traumatic injury to the brain. This is mostly from external forces to the head, rather than something happening inside the skull, resulting from either something hitting the head or the head hitting something. The brain is a soft jelly-like organ essentially floating in cerebrospinal fluid inside the When such an injury occurs, the brain impacts the side of the skull on the side of the injury, but then can whip back and hit the other side as well, so called coop-contra-coop injury. This can cause surface bruising on the brain.