A bang on the head can trigger inflammation in two overlooked brain regions—the protective membrane called the meninges and the cerebellum—that standard scans fail to detect. This matters because concussion is far more than a temporary knock. Most concussions result from car accidents and domestic violence, not just sports, and they can lead to long-term mood swings, anxiety, and even dementia. Yet doctors have no way to see the underlying damage in living patients, and no treatments exist to prevent these consequences. The researchers have found in mice that inflammation in the meninges and cerebellum persists after injury, and they suspect this drives the lasting symptoms. If this work succeeds, it will produce two concrete outcomes. First, it will confirm whether inflammation in these specific sites causes anxiety and reduced brain function after concussion. Second, it will develop new brain scans sensitive enough to spot that inflammation in human patients. That would give clinicians a way to diagnose concussion-related injury for the first time and point toward therapies that target the meninges and cerebellum—regions currently ignored in head injury care.
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Concussion - just a bang on the head? The term concussion is part of everyday vocabulary. People know that it refers to a pretty severe bang on the head, that may leave the person unconscious for a short period, with a headache and possibly even some memory loss. Many people may have seen a concussion occur, if they watch sports such as rugby and football, but they may not know that most concussions occur due to car accidents and domestic violence. The other thing people may not know is that, in the long-term, concussion may cause mood swings and anxiety, or even problems like dementia in later life. We are beginning to understand that concussion is more dangerous than we thought, though we still don't know why. One issue for scientists is that normal brain scans are not sensitive enough to show any major problems in the brains of people concussion. However, using models of brain injury in mice, our research suggests that we may have been looking in the wrong places. We have seen that a protective membrane around the brain, called the meninges, becomes inflamed after a concussion, as does another area called the cerebellum (latin for 'little brain'). We do not usually look at these brain areas when someone has a head injury. Therefore, our work has two major aims: 1) Test in animal models if the inflammation in these two understudied places (the meninges and cerebellum) are responsible for increases in anxiety and reduced brain function after concussion 2) Develop new types of brain scans in people, so we can see these processes in those who have suffered a concussion We will do this work at the University of Manchester within the world leading Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation in collaboration with neurosurgeons and neuroimaging experts at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. If successful we hope to find new ways to image the brains of patients and new target areas for therapies against the effects of concussion. This is extremely important as, at the moment, we have little understanding of these processes no treatment options for those affected.
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