Achievement

The public is increasingly aware of the long term symptoms caused by repeated mTBI. From this concern, the properties of repeated injuries are explored using a controlled cortical impact model. An animal was subjected to an mTBI, and then 3 or 7 days later it is subjected to another injury on the contralateral hemisphere. A novel computational method was developed for MR images and structural analysis was carried out for voxel classification. Analysis of the 3 groups (single injury, repeated 3day, and repeated 7day) revealed the 7day had a significant amount of increased blood in the second impact site compared to the other sites and the 3 day group showed increased edema. Findings suggest a vulnerability window where an injury induced 7 days after an initial injury exacerbates tissue abnormalities consistent with hemorrhagic progression. Published in Neuroimage Clinical.