Scientists at the Brain Injury Research Center at The University of California, Los Angeles, have revealed that individuals who have already sustained brain injury once may be at a greater risk of suffering more serious harm if they experience another trauma to the head within a certain timeframe.
In comparison to individuals who suffer one instance of mild brain trauma, those whose brains are trying to heal following a different incident may not recover as well.
The researchers, Mayumi Prins, Daya Alexander, Christopher Giza, and David Hovda, studied the effects of mild brain injury on rats.
They found that the animals were more vulnerable to the serious effects of a second brain injury one day after they had suffered an initial head injury than they were five days following their initial trauma.
By monitoring the rats’ cerebral glucose metabolism (CGM) they were able to determine that, following one injury, while their CGM was still low, their brains were more susceptible to damage.
The researchers believe that this study could help better measure the length of time that children and young adults who have sustained damage to the brain might be at a higher risk of sustaining serious repeat brain trauma.
