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200 active trials for Traumatic Brain Injury

Estimating Brain Biomechanics Using MRI

Objective: In this study we will develop and apply imaging techniques to perform the first three-dimensional (3-D) measurements of brain biomechanics during mild head movement in healthy human subjects. Biomechanics is the application of mechanics, or the physical principles in action when force is applied to an object, to the anatomical structure and/or function of organisms. Such techniques will be invaluable for building computational models of brain biomechanics, understanding variability of brain biomechanics across individual characteristics, such as age and sex, and determining brain sub-structures at risk for damage when movement of the head is accelerated, such as during a traumatic event. Study Population: Measurements will be performed on 90 healthy men and women aged 18-65. Design: We will build upon the model pioneered by our collaborator, Dr. Philip Bayly. The model places a human subject in a magnetic resonance (MR) scanner with one of two head support units that allows a specific range of motion. Each head support is latched such that it can be released by the subject, and results in either a rotation of the head of approximately 30 degrees or a flexion-extension of the head of approximately 4 degrees. Although both supports are weighted so that the motion is repeatable if the subject is relaxed, the subject can easily counteract the weight. The resulting acceleration/deceleration is small (in the range of normal activities, such as turning one's head during swimming) and has been validated and used in other human investigations of brain biomechanics. The subject repeats the motion multiple times during the MR scan under their own volition and desired pace to measure motion of the head and brain. Outcome measures: This project is a pilot study evaluating the potential of extracting three-dimensional estimates of brain deformation, such as strain measurements, using MR imaging. A primary outcome of this project will be a fast MR acquisition sequence for measuring 3-D brain deformation. The sequence will be evaluated by applying the protocol to human subjects, followed by preliminary quantification of the reproducibility and stability of deformation measurements.

Start: July 2012
Long-term Clinical Correlates of Traumatic Brain Injury

Background: - Traumatic brain injury may have a range of effects, from severe and permanent disability to more subtle functional and cognitive deficits that often go undetected during initial treatment. To improve treatments and therapies and to provide a uniform quality of care, researchers are interested in developing more standardized criteria for diagnosing and classifying different types of traumatic brain injury. By identifying imaging and other indicators immediately after the injury and during the initial treatment phrase, researchers hope to better understand the nature and effects of acute traumatic brain injury. Objectives: - To study the natural history of traumatic brain injury by examining the changes in brain scans, blood samples, and brain function over 5 years after a the injury. Eligibility: - Individuals between 18 and 70 years of age who have had a traumatic brain injury within the past 6 months. Design: This study will include about eight visits to the NIH Clinical Center over 5 years. Participants will have four visits in the first year, and one visit each year for the following 4 years. Each visit will take between 1 and 4 days, and participants will be in the outpatient clinic for about 8 hours each day of the visit. At each study visit, participants will have some or all of the following tests: Medical history and physical examination Blood and urine tests Questionnaires and assessments of thinking and memory, which may be spoken aloud, written down, or entered into a computer Imaging scans, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT). This study does not provide treatment and does not replace any current therapies. However, participants who are eligible for other National Institutes of Health studies may be referred to these studies by researchers.

Start: March 2011
Multisite RCT of STEP-Home: A Transdiagnostic Skill-based Community Reintegration Workshop

In this proposal, the investigators extend their previous SPiRE feasibility and preliminary effectiveness study to examine STEP-Home efficacy in a RCT design. This novel therapy will target the specific needs of a broad range of underserved post-9/11 Veterans. It is designed to foster reintegration by facilitating meaningful improvement in the functional skills most central to community participation: emotional regulation (ER), problem solving (PS), and attention functioning (AT). The skills trained in the STEP-Home workshop are novel in their collective use and have not been systematically applied to a Veteran population prior to the investigators' SPiRE study. STEP-Home will equip Veterans with skills to improve daily function, reduce anger and irritability, and assist reintegration to civilian life through return to work, family, and community, while simultaneously providing psychoeducation to promote future engagement in VA care. The innovative nature of the STEP-Home intervention is founded in the fact that it is: (a) an adaptation of an established and efficacious intervention, now applied to post-9/11 Veterans; (b) nonstigmatizing (not "therapy" but a "skills workshop" to boost acceptance, adherence and retention); (c) transdiagnostic (open to all post-9/11 Veterans with self-reported reintegration difficulties; Veterans often have multiple mental health diagnoses, but it is not required for enrollment); (d) integrative (focus on the whole person rather than specific and often stigmatizing mental and physical health conditions); (e) comprised of Veteran-specific content to teach participants cognitive behavioral skills needed for successful reintegration (which led to greater acceptability in feasibility study); (f) targets anger and irritability, particularly during interactions with civilians; (g) emphasizes psychoeducation (including other available treatment options for common mental health conditions); and (h) challenges beliefs/barriers to mental health care to increase openness to future treatment and greater mental health treatment utilization. Many Veterans who participated in the development phases of this workshop have gone on to trauma or other focused therapies, or taken on vocational (work/school/volunteer) roles after STEP-Home. The investigators have demonstrated that the STEP-Home workshop is feasible and results in pre-post change in core skill acquisition that the investigators demonstrated to be directly associated with post-workshop improvement in reintegration status in their SPiRE study. Given the many comorbidities of this cohort, the innovative treatment addresses multiple aspects of mental health, cognitive, and emotional function simultaneously and bolsters reintegration in a short-term group to maximize cost-effectiveness while maintaining quality of care.

Start: June 2019
Evaluation of Discriminating Power of Two Biomarkers in the Evaluation of Cerebral Lesions Due to Head Injuries in Infants and Children

Head injury is a frequent motive of consultation in paediatric emergency units and the first cause of mortality in infants of more than one year old in developped countries. The indication of performing cerebral CT scans currently depends on clinical decision based on recommendations used in adults. In this way, 60 to 90% of scans are normal in children with head injury. CT scan is expensive and irradiating with the risk of increasing the cancer in children. Protein S100B and copeptin are biomarkers which have shown their ability to detect cerebral lesion in children with head injury. (protein S100B and /or in adults protein S100B and copetin). It is the first clinical biological evaluation of severity of head injury based on dosing of copeptin alone or associated with protein S100B. Furthermore, the evaluation of the biomarkers GFAP, NFL, Tau and UCHL-1 is today necessary from a scientific point of view and to optimize the diagnostic and prognostic value of these biomarkers which can be combined. Indeed, these protein biomarkers are biologically linked to the protein S100B and copeptin, and will allow a more specific and more thorough evaluation of the presence of brain damage at the cellular level. More specifically, the measurement of the S-100B and GFAP proteins will allow evaluation of gliovascular damage while those of copeptin, NFL, Tau and UCHL1 proteins will allow evaluation of neuronal damage. The assay of these different biomarkers will also be carried out on a control population, without head injury or neurological or inflammatory pathologies, in order to establish the standards of these biomarkers on a pediatric population of similar age.

Start: May 2016