What causes post-concussion syndrome, now revealed!

Vaishnavi Kardale, Bioinformatics Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University

Have you ever got a concussion? A concussion occurs due to a mild traumatic brain injury. This might happen when your head gets hit due to a shock, accident, or an injury during play. Concussions may cause headaches, blurry vision, and blackouts. It may also have an impact on mood, behavior, memory, thinking, and sleeping. Concussion in some cases can lead to anxiety and depression. Concussions commonly occur in sports players as they frequently get a physical injury on the head.

What is a concussion?

The brain is one of the softest organs in our body. Its texture is often compared with jelly. It is surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the cranial space. On the outside, it is protected by the cranium or skull which is a hard bony structure. When the head experiences a shock or a blow the brain bumps against the hard bony covering. The brain is made of tiny cells called neurons. The neurons play a very essential role in transmitting signals. When the head bears a blow the neurons have to bear the impact too. The neurons get stretched, and sometimes they even break. The damage to neurons affects their ability to communicate, and they start dying. When a neuron dies it starts releasing toxins in its surrounding which causes other neurons to die as well. The combined effect of this process causes a concussion. In most cases, the incidents of a concussion last for as long as a few days to a week. But sometimes some people experience prolonged post-concussion symptoms (PPCS) even months and years after the injury. This is called post-concussion syndrome. Many factors including age, headache history, mental health problems, loss of consciousness, and mechanism of injury may influence the likelihood for PPCS.

What is the research all about?

10%-20% of adults who are diagnosed with a concussion have symptoms that persist beyond 3 months. The exact cause and clinical nature of PPCS are not known. So, data from Ontario Concussion Cohort study was analyzed to identify the nature of the disease. The goal of the study was to derive a risk score for PPCS among adults to determine the probable recovery time and facilitate appropriate care to improve the quality of life of patients suffering from it. Out of 587,057 individuals under study, 12.5% of adults diagnosed with a concussion required special medical care after 6 months or longer after the injury. This is the largest study associated with PPCS to date. It was found that older age, premorbid psychiatric and mental health history especially depression, anxiety, bipolar, and personality disorder were associated with greater risk for PPCS.

Recovery from concussion varies according to a person’s age. Since older adults are rarely studied in concussion research, the increased risk of PPCS in seniors was a novel finding. This might be due to reduced neurocognitive reserve capacity. A neurocognitive reserve is the mind’s resistance to damage to the brain. This research may help physicians treating adults with a concussion by allowing them to assess a person’s risk to PPCS and in turn, facilitate a tailored treatment plan.

Also read: Do radiations from cell phone tend to cause cancer?

Reference:  

1. Langer, L.K., Alavinia, S.M., Lawrence, D.W. et al. (2021). Prediction of risk of prolonged post-concussion symptoms: Derivation and validation of the TRICORDRR (Toronto Rehabilitation Institute Concussion Outcome Determination and Rehab Recommendations) score. PLoS Med, 18(7): e1003652. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003652

Author info:

Vaishnavi Kardale is a master’s student at the Bioinformatics Centre, Savitribai Phule University. She is interested in protein folding mechanisms and wants to study them further.

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