Stimulating part of the brain with electricity could improve the cognitive function of patients who’ve experienced debilitating traumatic brain injuries (TBI), an early clinical trial suggests.
TBI is caused by a severe blow to the head or body that damages neurons in the brain, or by an object directly penetrating the skull. The injuries range in severity, with mild cases causing temporary decline in normal brain function and more severe cases leading to longer-term impairments or even death.
In a small trial of five patients with long-lasting impairments from TBI, scientists showed that stimulating a specific brain region with surgically implanted electrodes improved the speed at which patients processed information by up to 52%.
The findings, published Monday (Dec. 4) in the journal Nature Medicine, need to be validated in larger clinical trials with more patients. However, the authors say that the results provide a “strong signal” that this approach could fill a void in the available treatments for moderate to severe TBI.
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“There is no therapy that has shown efficacy for this problem [TBI] in the chronic stage,” Dr. Nicholas Schiff, the lead study author and a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told Live Science.
Previously, scientists had attempted to “wake up” people with TBI using drugs that influence the activity of neurotransmitters — chemicals that relay signals between neurons, Schiff said. However, none of these have been successful.
So in the new study, the researchers took a different approach. Previous research suggested that the cognitive deficits in TBI patients stems from damage to the thalamus, a key relay station for information that’s important to learning and memory. Using surgically implanted electrodes, the team targeted a specific part of the thalamus called the central lateral nucleus. When impaired after TBI, the nucleus seems to contribute to a loss of executive function, meaning the ability to plan and execute tasks, and processing speed, or the ability to process information quickly.
The researchers tested the approach in six adult volunteers with chronic TBI who’d been injured around 3 to 18 years beforehand. The patients were still able to…
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