Islamabad - In the hours and days after a traumatic brain injury, inflammation inside the brain can accelerate to the point that more brain damage occurs, says a scientist working to better understand the acceleration and whether interventions like cannabinoids can improve patient outcomes.While some TBI patients do well, most would benefit from therapy to create a better balance between the vigorous inflammation needed in the immediate injury aftermath to clean up the site and the deceleration needed to complete healing and avoid more brain damage, says Dr. Kumar Vaibhav, translational neuroscientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Georgia.
“You cannot suppress the entire pro-inflammatory process otherwise it would be difficult to recover from your injury,” Vaibhav says. But in this case, there is too much inflammation, a major factor in the reality that one-third of hospitalized patients with a TBI die from damage that continues after their acute injury.The aftermath of concussions, essentially a closed-head injury, in football players is another case. Immediate problems might include a headache, dizziness and fogginess but ongoing memory and sleep problems, depression, as well as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s also can later occur.