Brain Injury review

This article on ischaemic brain injury by Mcloone and colleagues is from

The British Journal of Ophthalmolgy and looked into increased incidence of optic nerve hypoplasia in infants.

The aims were to evaluate the role of optic disc morphology in dating ischaemic brain injurys in infants.

They analysed 109 premature infants by use of cranial ultrasounds and magnetic resonance imaging. The group wss divided into groups of those with periventricular leucomalacia and intraventricular haemorrhage those without, the control group contained infants with normal neuroimaging at term and at the age of two.

‘Using the image analysis software of the RetCam, optic disc diameter (ODD), optic disc area (ODA), and optic cup area (OCA) were measured at 33-34 weeks gestational age. As serial cranial ultrasonography had been performed, it was possible to date the brain injury in those infants with periventricular white matter (PVWM) damage.’

‘RESULTS: Although there was a trend towards reducing ODD, ODA, and OCA with increasing severity of IVH, only the IVH 4 group differed significantly from the controls for these parameters (p = 0.002, p = 0.02, and p = 0.04, respectively). 44.4% of infants with grade 4 IVH had small discs. Only one patient had a large cup in a normal sized disc; this patient had IVH 4. In patients with PVWM damage, the median time of insult was 27 weeks in those with small discs and 28 weeks in those with normal discs. This difference was not significant (p = 0.23).’

‘CONCLUSIONS: Premature infants with IVH 4 have an increased incidence of optic nerve hypoplasia. We found no association between disc morphology and timing of brain injury.’

The full article can be found via pubmed    PMID: 16547329 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

In the recent paper by M trovato and colleagues from the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore (the United states of America), an ivestigation was carried out to look into the efficacy of donepezil on the memory; this was carried out on three adolescents who were suffering from traumatic brain injury.

By testing single adolescent patients for factors such as total number of words recalled and the ability to continue to recall words after time, memory was tested in brain injury both receiving and not receiving medication. It was found that patients who were receiving medicine had a much improved memory function than those who were not receiving medicine, and that no side effects were observed. this suggests that the use of donepezil may be of great benefit to adolescent sufferes of traumatic brain injuries.

Full article available from
PMID: 16537276

Just read this article in the bbc news section, I’ve given an excerpt of it below, a link to the full story can be seen at the bottom of the page. It looks like a great through.

Nanotechnology has restored the sight of blind rodents, a new study shows.  

Scientists mimicked the effect of a traumatic brain injury by severing the optical nerve tract in hamsters, causing the animals to lose vision.

After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team hopes this technique could be used in future reconstructive brain surgery.

I’ll be sure to read the full article in PNAS and give you a good overview of it, until then it can be found at the bbc site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4801728.stm