With public awareness growing about the risks to brain health from multiple concussions, thanks to the debut of the movie Concussion, MyBrainTest is providing a free online tool to track and document concussion symptoms. Repeated knocks to the head can trigger a neuro-degenerative cascade known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which typically results in dementia… Read More »
A recent brain imaging study confirms that small areas of bleeding known as microbleeds can occur in the cerebral cortex of people who have sustained concussions. By using an MRI imaging technique called susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), researchers were able to identify several areas of cerebral cortex bleeding in mild TBI (concussion) patients that were completely… Read More »
The Pop Warner youth football group shrank by over 25,000 members since 2010, according to several recent news reports. We believe this is the beginning of a long term decline in football program participation rates among grade school age to high school age players, who form the lower steps of a broad feeder system into… Read More »
The US Department of Defense is in the process of field testing and validating a portable neurocognitive assessment tool for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). The Defense Automated Neurobehavioral Assessment (DANA) is a portable and “field-hardened” software system that runs on the Android operating system. The DoD is running a formal clinical trial to compare the… Read More »
A pair of recent medical studies have raised warning flags on radiation exposure from brain imaging tests, especially for patients younger than 20 years old. The main culprit for excessive radiation is the computed tomography test, or CT scan. CT scans are X-Rays on steroids – the CT scanner uses ionizing radiation, which can damage… Read More »
The University of California San Diego School of Medicine hosted a wide ranging conference on brain health at the end of May. The first topic I’ll cover is a talk by Robert Stern, PhD, professor of neurology at Boston University. Dr. Stern is also Co-Director at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, known… Read More »