Brain Injury review

This paper by HL Lee from the Department of Neurosurgery at the China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan takes a look at the aanagement of transorbital brain injury; it is available from pubmed by using the ID17276932.

Transorbital brain injuries caused by metal bar penetration are uncommon and often cause serious damage without prompt treatment. Artifacts caused by the penetrating metal bar on computed tomography (CT) often obscure the actual brain damage along the path of penetration, and delayed treatment for the brain insult may result.

 We present 2 cases of transorbital brain injury following penetration by a metal bar. CT scans were initially performed on both patients. However, image resolution was poor and the extent of brain damage could not be ascertained due to severe artifacts associated with the metal bars. Both patients deteriorated in the emergency room and subsequently received surgical intervention. One patient recovered uneventfully.

Unfortunately, the other patient died following surgery due to an unrecognized intracranial hemorrhage with brain herniation. Based on this experience, we recommend prompt surgical decompression with early CT follow-up to determine the true extent of brain damage and assess for possible delayed events inpatients with extended transorbital brain injuries caused by metal bars.

This article by Jiang and Yang from the department of neurosurgery at the Shanghai Jiaotong University takes a look at the effects of hypothermia  on traumatic brain injuries.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The aim of this article is to review the current status of protective effects of mild-to-moderate hypothermia on traumatic brain injury.

RECENT FINDINGS: More than 30 clinical studies have reported effects of therapeutic hypothermia on outcome of traumatic brain injury and cerebral ischemia. Only one clinical trial of short-term mild hypothermia did not show any effect in patients with severe traumatic brain injury. Long-term mild hypothermia may be useful for severe traumatic brain-injured patients.

SUMMARY: Mild-to-moderate hypothermia plays a significant role in cerebral protection after traumatic brain injury.

The full article can be found via pubmed using the id number 17327735

Studies of memory impairment in humans and experimental animals have been fundamental to learning about the organization of memory and its cellular and molecular substrates. When memory impairment occurs, especially after perturbations of the nervous system, the question inevitably arises whether the impairment reflects impaired information storage or impaired accessibility. This topic has been the subject of considerable commentary and experimental work over the years. In this reappraisal, I first consider four broad areas of behavioral study from the 1970s and 1980s that led to a dominant and compelling view of memory impairment as a deficit of information storage. Second, I identify some ambiguities that arise about how the terms “storage” and “retrieval” are applied, especially when the evidence is somewhat indirect and based on a behavioral-psychological level of analysis. I then review neurobiological findings that have been largely overlooked in these discussions. The relevant studies are ones where it has been possible to monitor neurons and synapses in direct relation to behavioral memory, for example, in animals with simple nervous systems and in single cell recordings from behaving monkeys. This work provides a straightforward and illuminating perspective on the question and confirms the view that first emerged from less direct evidence.

This article is by Larry R. Squire from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Diego,  USA

The pubmed ID for the full article is PMCID: 1635408