Links for Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion

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Rob Stein Benjamin Franklin famously wrote: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." While that may still be true, there's a controversy simmering today about one of the ways doctors declare people to be dead. The debate is focused on the Uniform Determination of Death Act, a law that was adopted by most states in the 1980s. The law says that death can be declared if someone has experienced "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain." But some parts of the brain can continue to function in people who have been declared brain dead, prompting calls to revise the statute. Many experts say the discrepancy needs to be resolved to protect patients and their families, maintain public trust and reconcile what some see as a troubling disconnect between the law and medical practice. The debate became so contentious, however, that the Uniform Law Commission, the group charged with rewriting model laws for states, paused its process last summer because participants couldn't reach a consensus. "I'm worried," says Thaddeus Pope, a bioethicist and lawyer at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. "There's a lot of conflict at the bedside over this at hospitals across the United States. Let's get in front of it and fix it before it becomes a crisis. It's such an important question that everyone needs to be on the same page." The second method, brain death, can be declared for people who have sustained catastrophic brain injury causing the permanent cessation of all brain function, such as from a massive traumatic brain injury or massive stroke, but whose hearts are still pumping through the use of ventilators or other artificial forms of life support. © 2024 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 2: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Link ID: 29147 - Posted: 02.13.2024

By Carl Zimmer Traumatic brain injuries have left more than five million Americans permanently disabled. They have trouble focusing on even simple tasks and often have to quit jobs or drop out of school. A study published on Monday has offered them a glimpse of hope. Five people with moderate to severe brain injuries had electrodes implanted in their heads. As the electrodes stimulated their brains, their performance on cognitive tests improved. If the results hold up in larger clinical trials, the implants could become the first effective therapy for chronic brain injuries, the researchers said. “This is the first evidence that you can move the dial for this problem,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who led the study. Gina Arata, one of the volunteers who received the implant, was 22 when a car crash left her with fatigue, memory problems and uncontrollable emotions. She abandoned her plans for law school and lived with her parents in Modesto, Calif., unable to keep down a job. In 2018, 18 years after the crash, Ms. Arata received the implant. Her life has changed profoundly, she said. “I can be a normal human being and have a conversation,” she said. “It’s kind of amazing how I’ve seen myself improve.” Dr. Schiff and his colleagues designed the trial based on years of research on the structure of the brain. Those studies suggested that our ability to focus on tasks depends on a network of brain regions that are linked to each other by long branches of neurons. The regions send signals to each other, creating a feedback loop that keeps the whole network active. Sudden jostling of the brain — in a car crash or a fall, for example — can break some of the long-distance connections in the network and lead people to fall into a coma, Dr. Schiff and his colleagues have hypothesized. During recovery, the network may be able to power itself back up. But if the brain is severely damaged, it may not fully rebound. Dr. Schiff and his colleagues pinpointed a structure deep inside the brain as a crucial hub in the network. Known as the central lateral nucleus, it is a thin sheet of neurons about the size and shape of an almond shell. © 2023 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 29033 - Posted: 12.06.2023

By Claudia López Lloreda Genetic tweaks in kingfishers might help cushion the blow when the diving birds plunge beak first into the water to catch fish. Analysis of the genetic instruction book of some diving kingfishers identified changes in genes related to brain function as well as retina and blood vessel development, which might protect against damage during dives, researchers report October 24 in Communications Biology. The results suggest the different species of diving kingfishers may have adapted to survive their dives unscathed in some of the same ways, but it’s still unclear how the genetic changes protect the birds. Hitting speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour, kingfisher dives put huge amounts of potentially damaging pressure on the birds’ heads, beaks and brains. The birds dive repeatedly, smacking their heads into the water in ways that could cause concussions in humans, says Shannon Hackett, an evolutionary biologist and curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. “So there has to be something that protects them from the terrible consequences of repeatedly hitting their heads against a hard substrate.” Hackett first became interested in how the birds protect their brains while she worked with her son’s hockey team and started worrying about the effect of repeated hits on the human brain. Around the same time, evolutionary biologist Chad Eliason joined the museum to study kingfishers and their plunge diving behavior. In the new study, Hackett, Eliason and colleagues analyzed the complete genome of 30 kingfisher species, some that plunge dive and others that don’t, from specimens frozen and stored at the museum. The preserved birds came from all over the world; some of the diving species came from mainland areas and others from islands and had evolved to dive independently rather than from the same plunge-diving ancestor. The team wanted to know if the different diving species had evolved similar genetic changes to arrive at the same behaviors. Many kingfisher species have developed this behavior, but it was unclear whether this was through genetic convergence, similar to how many species of birds have lost their flight or how bats and dolphins independently developed echolocation (SN: 9/6/2013). © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2023.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28991 - Posted: 11.08.2023

In a study of 152 deceased athletes less than 30 years old who were exposed to repeated head injury through contact sports, brain examination demonstrated that 63 (41%) had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disorder associated with exposure to head trauma. Neuropsychological symptoms were severe in both those with and without evidence of CTE. Suicide was the most common cause of death in both groups, followed by unintentional overdose. Among the brain donors found to have CTE, 71% had played contact sports at a non-professional level (youth, high school, or college competition). Common sports included American football, ice hockey, soccer, rugby, and wrestling. The study, published in JAMA Neurology, confirms that CTE can occur even in young athletes exposed to repetitive head impacts. The research was supported in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Because CTE cannot be definitively diagnosed in individuals while living, it is unknown how commonly CTE occurs in such athletes. As in all brain bank studies, donors differ from the general population and no estimates of prevalence can be concluded from this research. Most of the study donors were white, male football players with cognitive, behavioral, and/or mood symptoms. Their families desired neuropathologic examination after their loved one’s early death and donated to the Understanding Neurologic Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Brain Bank. There were no differences in cause of death or clinical symptoms between those with CTE and those without.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28889 - Posted: 08.30.2023

Jon Hamilton If you've ever had trouble finding your keys or remembering what you had for breakfast, you know that short-term memory is far from perfect. For people who've had a traumatic brain injury (TBI), though, recalling recent events or conversations can be a major struggle. "We have patients whose family cannot leave them alone at home because they will turn on the stove and forget to turn it off," says Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, who directs the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. So Arrastia and a team of scientists have been testing a potential treatment. It involves delivering a pulse of electricity to the brain at just the right time. And it worked in a study of eight people with moderate or severe TBIs, the team reports in the journal Brain Stimulation. A precisely timed pulse to a brain area just behind the ear improved recall by about 20 percent and reduced the person's memory deficit by about half. If the results pan out in a larger study, the approach might improve the lives of many young people who survive a serious TBI, says Diaz-Arrastia, an author of the study and a professor of neurology at Penn. "In many cases, the reason they're unable to rejoin and fully participate in society is because of their memory problems," he says. "And they often have this disability that goes on for many, many decades." But the treatment is not for the timid. It requires patients to have electrodes surgically implanted in their brain. And scientists are still refining the system that delivers the electrical pulses. More than 1.5 million people in the U.S. sustain a TBI each year. Common causes include falls, motor vehicle accidents, assaults, contact sports, and gunshots. © 2023 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 28870 - Posted: 08.09.2023

By Ken Belson and Benjamin Mueller When Jeffrey Vlk played running back in high school in the 1990s and then safety in college, he took and delivered countless tackles during full-contact football practices. Hitting was a mainstay, as were injuries, including concussions. When he became a coach at Buffalo Grove High School outside Chicago in 2005, Vlk did what he had been taught: He had his players hit and tackle in practices to “toughen them up.” By the time he became head coach in 2016, though, he saw that many of his players were so banged up from a week of hitting in practice that they missed games or were more susceptible to being injured in those games. So, starting in 2019, Vlk eliminated full-contact practices. Players wore shoulder pads once a week, on Wednesday, which he called contact day. That’s when they hit tackle bags and crash pads, and wrapped up teammates but did not throw them to the ground. Vlk said no starting player had been injured at his practices in four years. “Those types of injuries can stay with you for a long time,” he said, “and knowing that I’m keeping the kids safe, not just in our program, but beyond the program, is reason enough to go this route.” Vlk’s approach to limiting the number of hits players take has been spreading slowly in the football world, where much of the effort has focused on avoiding and treating concussions, which often have observable symptoms and are tracked by sports leagues. But researchers have for years posited that the more hits to the head a player receives — even subconcussive ones, which are usually not tracked — the more likely he is to develop cognitive and neurological problems later in life. A new study published on Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications added a critical wrinkle: A football player’s chances of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., are related to the number of head impacts absorbed, but also to the cumulative impact of all those hits. © 2023 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28827 - Posted: 06.21.2023

Katharine Sanderson An influential team of researchers has updated the scientific consensus on how concussions in sports should be defined, treated and monitored. But critics say that the statement, which is revised every 4 to 5 years, excludes evidence that links head injuries in sport with long-term brain conditions such as CTE — a high-profile issue in games such as American football and soccer. The consensus statement, compiled by 114 co-authors after the International Conference on Concussion in Sport in Amsterdam last October, summarizes the latest evidence on sports-related concussions to help clinicians manage the trauma. The latest version introduces details including a description of brain-chemistry events that happen after a concussion. It was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on 14 June1. Why sports concussions are worse for women But some researchers have criticized the authors’ work. “Their refusal to acknowledge a causal relationship between contact-sports participation and CTE [chronic traumatic encephalopathy] is a danger to the public,” says Chris Nowinski, a neuroscientist and chief executive of the Concussion Legacy Foundation in Middletown, Delaware, which supports athletes and veterans affected by concussions and CTE. Many studies have linked repeated sports-related head injuries with CTE — a degenerative brain disease that can develop into dementia. But the consensus authors say that these studies use data from brain banks — where former athletes donate their tissue to be studied after death — that they say is not rigorous enough to be included in their review. “The CTE literature is almost exclusively case series studies,” says clinician Bob Cantu, a co-author of the consensus report at the Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. “And that literature did not meet the inclusion criteria for the systematic review.” © 2023 Springer Nature Limited

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28823 - Posted: 06.17.2023

By Mark Johnson Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Megiddo in modern-day Israel have discovered a window into medicine’s ancient past: the 3,500-year-old bones of two brothers, both bearing signs of an infectious disease, and one scarred from cranial surgery that may have been an attempt to treat the illness. A recent paper in the journal PLOS ONE describes the discovery, which is one of the region’s earliest examples of a widely practiced type of surgery that creates an opening in the skull. The work should help scientists and anthropologists understand how surgeries developed and became more effective over time. The procedure, known as cranial trephination, was performed thousands of years ago in different parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, China and South America. A 2020 paper listed trephination as one of “the first three procedures that marked the dawn of surgery,” along with circumcision and bladder stone removal. Versions of the procedure, called either a craniotomy or craniectomy, are still practiced today “as emergency treatment for brain swelling, bleeding, as well as for surgeries to treat epilepsy and to remove some tumors,” said John Verano, a professor of anthropology at Tulane University, who described the new paper as an interesting case report. Although the electric drills used today are a far cry from the handheld flints and metal tools used thousands of years ago, the objective — making a hole in the skull — is the same. However, Verano stressed that trephination was not brain surgery. “They were careful not to cut through the membrane protecting the brain, which would lead to meningitis and death if not done under strictly sterile conditions,” he said. Archaeologists and anthropologists cannot be certain what conditions ancient healers were treating by cutting into the skull, but most speculation centers on serious head injuries. Other possibilities include epilepsy, mental illness and swelling in the brain.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28702 - Posted: 03.15.2023

By Ken Belson SHICKLEY, Neb. — Chris Eitzmann seemed to excel at everything until he didn’t. He parlayed a Harvard football captaincy into an invite in 2000 to Patriots training camp. After bouncing around the N.F.L., Eitzmann retired from pro football in 2002, got an M.B.A. from Dartmouth and worked at several big financial firms in Boston, where he and his wife, Mikaela, had four children. By 2015, however, Chris began a descent that has become familiar to former football players afflicted with C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head. Chris had loved mountain biking, running and lifting weights, but he quit exercising and drank to excess. After a move to Mikaela’s family farm back in their home state of Nebraska two years later, Chris’s behavior became more alarming. He would disappear for long stretches of the day and neglect his work. His drinking got worse, and she said he would sometimes drive drunk. In December 2021, Chris Eitzmann was found dead in his Boston apartment of alcohol poisoning at 44. Almost a year later, doctors at Boston University found that he had C.T.E., a disease that can still only be diagnosed posthumously. Mikaela said that knowing whether her husband had the disease while he was alive would have markedly changed the final years of his life. “If he had known that it really was something, and not just this endless vacuum of not knowing, if he had an idea that he could have grabbed on to, that clarity and understanding would have been so valuable,” she said. Without treatment options, a C.T.E. diagnosis could provide only clarity for former players such as Eitzmann who have reason to believe they may be affected. But it could eventually help current players make risk assessments about when to give up tackle football and help former players seek treatment. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28561 - Posted: 11.19.2022

By Ken Belson AMSTERDAM — For the first time since 2016, one of the most influential groups guiding doctors, trainers and sports leagues on concussions met last month to decide, among other things, if it was time to recognize the causal relationship between repeated head hits and the degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E. Despite mounting evidence and a highly regarded U.S. government agency recently acknowledging the link, the group all but decided it was not. Leaders of the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport, meeting in Amsterdam, signaled that it would continue its long practice of casting doubt on the connection between the ravages of head trauma and sports. C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, was first identified in boxers in 1928 and burst into prominence in 2005, when scientists published their posthumous diagnosis of the disease in the N.F.L. Hall of Fame center Mike Webster, creating an existential crisis for sports such as football and rugby that involve players hitting their heads thousands of times a year. Scientists have spent the past decade analyzing hundreds of brains from athletes and military veterans, and the variable evident in nearly every case of C.T.E. has been their exposure to repeated head trauma. Researchers have also established what they call a dose response between the severity of the C.T.E. and the number of years playing collision sports. After playing down an association between head injuries and brain damage for years, the N.F.L. in 2016 acknowledged that there was a link between football and degenerative brain disorders such as C.T.E. Just days before the conference in Amsterdam, the National Institutes of Health, the biggest funder of brain research in the United States, said that C.T.E. “is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries.” But in one of the final sessions of the three-day conference, one of the leaders of the conference, a neuropsychologist who has received $1.5 million in research funding from the N.F.L., dismissed the work of scientists who have documented C.T.E. in hundreds of athletes and soldiers because he said their studies thus far did not account for other health variables, including heart disease, diabetes and substance abuse. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28543 - Posted: 11.09.2022

By Laura Sanders In a football game on September 25, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got the pass off but he got knocked down. Fans watched him shake his head and stumble to the ground as he tried to jog it off. After a medical check, he went back into the game against the Buffalo Bills with what his coach later said was a back injury. Four days later, in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Tagovailoa, 24, got hit again. This time, he left the field on a stretcher with what was later diagnosed as a concussion. Many observers suspect that the first hit — given Tagovailoa’s subsequent headshaking and wobbliness — left the athlete with a concussion, also called a mild traumatic brain injury. If those were indeed signs of a head injury, that first hit may have lined him up for an even worse brain injury just days later. “The science tells us that yes, a person who is still recovering from a concussion is at an elevated risk for sustaining another concussion,” says Kristen Dams-O’Connor, a neuropsychologist and director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. As one example, a concussion roughly doubled the chance of a second one among young Swedish men, researchers reported in 2013 in the British Medical Journal. “This, I think, was avoidable,” Dams-O’Connor says of Tagovailoa’s brain injury in the game against the Bengals. After a hit to the head, when the soft brain hits the unyielding skull, the injury kicks off a cascade of changes. Some nerve cells become overactive, inflammation sets in, and blood flow is altered. These downstream events in the brain — and how they relate to concussion symptoms — can happen over hours and days, and are not easy to quickly measure, Dams-O’Connor says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2022.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28506 - Posted: 10.08.2022

By Dan Diamond A high-profile NFL injury has put the spotlight back on football’s persistent concussions, which are linked to head trauma and a variety of long-lasting symptoms, and can be worsened by rushing back to physical activity. Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who appeared to suffer head trauma in a game Sunday afternoon that was later described as a back injury, was diagnosed with a concussion Thursday night following a tackle. After Tagovailoa’s head hit the turf, he remained on the ground and held his arms and fingers splayed in front of his face — which experts said evoked conditions known as “decorticate posturing” or “fencing response,” where brain damage triggers the involuntary reaction. “It’s a potentially life-threatening brain injury,” said Chris Nowinski, a neuroscientist and co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit group focused on concussion research and prevention, adding that he worried about Tagovailoa’s long-term prognosis, given that it can take months or years for an athlete to fully recover from repeated concussions. Nowinski said he was particularly concerned about situations where people suffer two concussions within a short period — a condition sometimes known as second impact syndrome — which can lead to brain swelling and other persistent problems. “That’s why we should at least be cautious with the easy stuff, like withholding players with a concussion from the game and letting their brain recover,” Nowinski said. The Dolphins said Tagovailoa had movement in all of his extremities and had been discharged Thursday night from University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The NFL’s top health official said in an interview on Friday that he was worried about Tagovailoa’s health, and pointed to a joint review the league and its players association was conducting into the Dolphins’ handling of the quarterback’s initial injury on Sunday.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28501 - Posted: 10.05.2022

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that biomarkers present in the blood on the day of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can accurately predict a patient’s risk of death or severe disability six months later. Measuring these biomarkers may enable a more accurate assessment of patient prognosis following TBI, according to results published today in Lancet Neurology. Researchers with the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in TBI (TRACK-TBI(link is external)) study examined levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin carboxy-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1)—proteins found in glial cells and neurons, respectively—in nearly 1,700 patients with TBI. TRACK-TBI is an observational study aimed at improving understanding and diagnosis of TBIs to develop successful treatments. The study team measured the biomarkers in blood samples taken from patients with TBI on the day of their injury and then evaluated their recovery six months later. Participants were recruited from 18 high-level trauma centers across the United States. More than half (57%) had suffered TBI as the result of a road traffic accident. The study showed that GFAP and UCH-L1 levels on the day of injury were strong predictors of death and unfavorable outcomes, such as vegetative state or severe disability requiring daily assistance to function. Those with biomarker levels among the highest fifth were at greatest risk of death in the six months post-TBI, with most occurring within the first month. GFAP and UCH-1 are currently used to aid in the detection of TBI. Elevated levels in the blood on the day of the TBI are linked to brain injury visible with neuroimaging. In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved use of these biomarkers to help clinicians decide whether to order a head CT scan to examine the brain after mild TBI.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28433 - Posted: 08.13.2022

By Erin Blakemore There’s growing consensus on the danger of sport-related concussion — and how to treat athletes after head injuries. But the research at the heart of those recommendations has a fatal flaw, a new study suggests: It relies almost exclusively on male athletes. In a review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, a national team of medical and concussion experts looked at 171 concussion studies cited by the three most influential consensus and position statements on sport-related concussion. These documents update professionals on how to treat athletes with concussions, providing important protocols for clinicians and setting the agenda for future research. Although the statements define the standard of care, the study suggests, they are based on data that largely excludes female athletes. Participants in the underlying studies were 80.1 percent male. Among the studies, 40.3 percent didn’t look at female athletes at all; only 25 percent of them had roughly equal male and female participation. Researchers said there could be several reasons for the disparity such as women’s historic exclusion from sports and professional sports organizations with no female counterpart. Women’s sports are underrepresented among groups that sponsor concussion research, they write. Bias in the sciences could have an effect, too: women are still underrepresented in both university faculties and scientific research. Because of the research gap, it isn’t yet clear whether females respond to concussions differently than males. Both sex and gender can cause medical conditions to develop — and be experienced, reported and treated — differently.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 28432 - Posted: 08.13.2022

By Sam Jones Watching a woodpecker repeatedly smash its face into a tree, it’s hard not to wonder how its brain stays intact. For years, the prevailing theory has been that structures in and around a woodpecker’s skull absorb the shocks created during pecking. “Blogs and information panels at zoos all present this as fact — that shock absorption is occurring in woodpeckers,” said Sam Van Wassenbergh, a biologist at the University of Antwerp. Woodpeckers have even inspired the engineering of shock-absorbing materials and gear, like football helmets. But now, after analyzing high-speed footage of woodpeckers in action, Dr. Van Wassenbergh and colleagues are challenging this long-held belief. They discovered that woodpeckers are not absorbing shocks during pecking and they likely aren’t being concussed by using their heads like hammers. Their work was published in Current Biology on Thursday. When a woodpecker slams its beak into a tree, it generates a shock. If something in a woodpecker’s skull were absorbing these shocks before they reached the brain — the way a car’s airbag absorbs shocks in an accident before they reach a passenger — then, on impact, a woodpecker’s head would decelerate more slowly compared with its beak. With this in mind, the researchers analyzed high-speed videos of six woodpeckers (three species, two birds each) hammering away into a tree. They tracked two points on each bird’s beak and one point on its eye to mark its brain’s location. They found that the eye decelerated at the same rate as the beak and, in a couple of cases, even more quickly, which meant that — at the very least — the woodpecker was not absorbing any shock during pecking. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28403 - Posted: 07.16.2022

By Nikk Ogasa A flexible sensor applied to the back of the neck could help researchers detect whiplash-induced concussions in athletes. The sensor, described June 23 in Scientific Reports, is about the size of a bandage and is sleeker and more accurate than some instruments currently in use, says electrical engineer Nelson Sepúlveda of Michigan State University in East Lansing. “My hope is that it will lead to earlier diagnosis of concussions.” Bulky accelerometers in helmets are sometimes used to monitor for concussion in football players. But since the devices are not attached directly to athletes’ bodies, the sensors are prone to false readings from sliding helmets. Sepúlveda and colleagues’ patch adheres to the nape. It is made of two electrodes on an almost paper-thin piece of piezoelectric film, which generates an electric charge when stretched or compressed. When the head and neck move, the patch transmits electrical pulses to a computer. Researchers can analyze those signals to assess sudden movements that can cause concussion. The team tried out the patch on the neck of a human test dummy, dropping the figure from a height of about 60 centimeters. Researchers also packed the dummy’s head with different sensors to provide a baseline level of neck strain. Data from the patch aligned with data gathered by the internal sensors more than 90 percent of the time, Sepúlveda and colleagues found. The researchers are now working on incorporating a wireless transmitter into the patch for an even more streamlined design. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2022.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28383 - Posted: 06.30.2022

By Laura Sanders Punishing headbutts damage the brains of musk oxen. That observation, made for the first time and reported May 17 in Acta Neuropathologica, suggests that a life full of bell-ringing clashes is not without consequences, even in animals built to bash. Although a musk ox looks like a dirty dust mop on four tiny hooves, it’s formidable. When charging, it can reach speeds up to 60 kilometers an hour before ramming its head directly into an oncoming head. People expected that musk oxen brains could withstand these merciless forces largely unscathed, “that they were magically perfect,” says Nicole Ackermans of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “No one actually checked.” In fact, the brains of three wild musk oxen (two females and one male) showed signs of extensive damage, Ackermans and her colleagues found. The damage was similar to what’s seen in people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disorder known to be caused by repetitive head hits (SN: 12/13/17). In the musk ox brains, a form of a protein called tau had accumulated in patterns that suggested brain bashing was to blame. In an unexpected twist, the brains of the females, who hit heads less frequently than males, were worse off than the male’s. The male body, with its heavier skull, stronger neck muscles and forehead fat pads, may cushion the blows to the brain, the researchers suspect. The results may highlight an evolutionary balancing act; the animals can endure just enough brain damage to allow them to survive and procreate. High-level brainwork may not matter much, Ackermans says. “Their day-to-day life is not super complicated.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2022.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28341 - Posted: 05.28.2022

Dave Davies Did Stone Age people conduct brain surgery? Medical historian Ira Rutkow points to evidence that suggests they did. "There have been many instances of skulls that have been found dating back to Neolithic times that have grooves in them where portions of the skull have been removed. And it's evident if you look at these skulls, that this was all done by hand," Rutkow says. There's no written record of Stone Age neurosurgery, but Rutkow theorizes it may have been conducted by a shaman on patients who were comatose or who had been otherwise injured. What's more, he says, physical evidence indicates that some patients likely survived: "With many of these older skulls, new bone growth had already formed, and bone in the skull can only form if the patient is alive," he says. Rutkow is a surgeon himself. His new book, Empire of the Scalpel, traces the history of surgery, from the days when barbers did most operations and patients died in great numbers, to today's high tech operations that use robots with artificial intelligence. He says that when looking back, it's important to keep in mind the body of knowledge that existed at a particular point in history — and to not judge surgeons of yore too harshly. "People write about medical history and they say, 'Oh, it was barbaric,' or 'The doctors were maltreating,'" he says. "We have to remember at all times that whatever I write about in the past was considered state of the art at the time. ... I would hate to think that 200 years from now, somebody is looking at what we are doing today and saying, 'Boy, that treatment that they were doing was just barbaric. How do they do that to people?'" © 2022 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28257 - Posted: 03.30.2022

By Ken Belson For more than two decades, Paul McCrory has been the world’s foremost doctor shaping the concussion protocols that are used by sports leagues and organizations globally. As the leader of the Concussion in Sport Group, McCrory helped choose the members of the international group and write its quadrennial consensus statement on the latest research on concussions — a veritable bible for leagues, trainers, doctors and academics that an N.F.L. spokesman once called “the foundation of all sports-related research.” But McCrory’s status as a leading gatekeeper for concussion treatment and research is under attack as he faces multiple accusations that he plagiarized other scientists, including in articles for a medical journal that he edited. He has denied intentionally lifting copy without credit, and has called one since-retracted piece an “isolated and unfortunate incident.” The scandal facing the pre-eminent doctor, who has long cast doubt on the legitimacy of C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has raised questions about his relationship to sports leagues and the influence they may have in shaping how the research on brain trauma is interpreted. “It’s concerning because he’s taken the lead on writing a consensus statement that is so influential, and we should have access to his insights,” said Kathleen Bachynski, who teaches public health at Muhlenberg College and has written about head trauma in sports. “McCrory’s research agenda and published statements and work as an expert witness come from a point of view of minimizing C.T.E.” McCrory’s prominence grew as sports leagues looked for consensus on concussions. McCrory’s rise to power in concussion circles is notable partly because he is based in Australia, far from the research centers studying head trauma in Europe and America. A neurologist at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, McCrory worked for 15 years as a team doctor for the Collingwood Football Club, an Australian rules football team in Melbourne, beginning around 1990. He came to advise the Australian Football League, as well as Formula 1 racing, boxing, soccer, rugby and a who’s who of sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee, FIFA and the International Ice Hockey Federation, at the turn of the century. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28249 - Posted: 03.23.2022

By Christa Hillstrom To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. In 2017, when Becky was about to turn 40, she woke up in the middle of the night and was startled by her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her face, gaunt from weight loss, looked pale. A scar snaked under her chin from when her boyfriend punched her. Her nostrils were now asymmetrical from when he broke her nose. Smaller scars marked her eyebrows and her bottom lip, where a tooth once cut through. She always wore her hair in a bun to mask a bald spot; he had slammed her head against a door frame, and she had needed staples there. She could barely hear from one ear. Her chipped front tooth was harder to hide than the broken molars knocked loose during two decades of beatings. When she went shopping, she would hold items in her hands, assessing how much damage they would do to her body. She had stopped buying leather belts, the braided kind. She remembered getting some of her injuries. With others, the memories hung fuzzy and distant. They met in 1996, when she was a teenager with a new baby. She had already spent years raising her younger siblings when her own mother, who suffered from mental illness and was a survivor of domestic abuse, could not. The first time Becky remembers her boyfriend hurting her, about six months into their relationship, was when he was joking around: a tug on her hair that was surprisingly forceful. Underneath the laughing, something felt mean. And then the meanness got darker. From the beginning of their relationship, Becky’s boyfriend drew the reins tightly around their lives. She could never predict what would set him off. Some days, he attacked her for sleeping too late; others, for waking him up too early. He hit her when the house was too messy or if he wasn’t in the mood for the breakfast she made. Becky, who asked to be identified by a nickname for her safety, often showed up to work with bruises on her face, caked over with foundation, but her co-workers never said anything. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 28229 - Posted: 03.02.2022