News & Headlines

A team of researchers led by Penn Medicine will investigate the link between traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) over the next five years with a $10 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). 

Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that young children between the ages of 5 and 12 were more likely to experience a concussion from recreation and other non-sport activities, yet those injuries were not seen by specialists until days later compared with sports-related concussions in the same age group. This study suggests concussion research is needed for children outside of sports and that providing more resources and education to those providers diagnosing most concussions in this age group, particularly emergency departments and primary care, could reduce inequities in concussion care regardless of the mechanism of injury by which these patients experience concussions. The findings were recently published by the Journal of Pediatrics.

A government watchdog will probe the Pentagon's efforts to identify, treat and prevent traumatic brain injuries caused by blast exposure. The Government Accountability Office has accepted a request from two dozen lawmakers in both parties and chambers of Congress to conduct a review in response to their concerns that the Pentagon is not taking the issue seriously enough, according to a copy of a letter the GAO sent to the lawmakers that was obtained by Military.com.

A critical part of the brain linked to risks for anxiety later in life – the left amygdala – was significantly smaller by volume in babies of mothers who reported stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new manuscript published in JAMA Network Open. The right hippocampus, which governs spatial, visual and verbal memories, and the white matter were also reduced in children whose mothers reported stress. The research from Children’s National Hospital provides mounting evidence that children of the pandemic, even those far too young to understand it, need ongoing assessments of developmental or mental health support later in life.

Dr. John Kirwan, Executive Director of Pennington Biomedical Research Center, is serving as a co-principal investigator on the Pathobiology in RECOVER of Metabolic and Immune Systems, or PROMIS, study. The study has been awarded more than $802,000 by the National Institutes of Health to identify potential causes of Long COVID. "The PROMIS study will help us better understand what is driving Long COVID," Dr. Kirwan said. "In the early days of the pandemic, Pennington Biomedical directed its resources to address the urgent health needs of our population. Now with estimates that more than 25 percent of people in the U.S. who had COVID have experienced Long COVID at some point, there is a need for Pennington Biomedical scientists to find the causes and potential cures of this debilitating syndrome. It is well known, for example, that those with diabetes and obesity are at a higher risk for Long COVID. Following our mission, this is one more reason for Pennington Biomedical to pursue measures in treating these chronic diseases as well."

A vote against using MDMA as part of therapy for PTSD has provoked a powerful backlash among researchers who study psychedelic drugs. Some 13 million Americans struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Existing therapies only bring relief for a fraction of patients, and new treatments are sorely needed, according to psychiatrists wrestling with the scale of the problem. So, there was distinct disappointment when an advisory committee at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted earlier this month against a therapy that many had hoped could offer the first new treatment for PTSD in 25 years.

Soldiers are more likely than their civilian peers to die by suicide. Many people wrongly believe this is because of combat trauma, but in fact the most vulnerable group are soldiers who have never deployed. The Army’s suicide rate has risen steadily even in peacetime, and the numbers now exceed total combat deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A Times investigation into the death of Specialist Austin Valley, stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas, found that mental-health care providers in the Army are beholden to brigade leadership and often fail to act in the best interest of soldiers.

When 42-year-old Myrthe Boss gets on her bike to go shopping in the Dutch town of Ede, she pops on a helmet. This act, considered essential in many countries, marks Boss out as something of a radical in the Netherlands, where helmet-wearing is rare. Now, however, faced with rising number of traffic deaths linked in particular to older riders and e-bikes, the Dutch government and provinces – not to mention neurologists like Boss – are inviting cyclists to think again.

A team of Australia's leading health researchers has developed a new "dictionary" to better predict outcomes for people who have experienced a moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The work is published in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

U.S. soldiers were almost nine times more likely to die by suicide than by enemy fire, according to a Pentagon study for the five-year period ending in 2019. The study, published in May by the Defense Health Agency, found that suicide was the leading cause of death among active-duty soldiers from 2014 to 2019. There were 883 suicide deaths during that time period. Accidents were the No. 2 cause with 814 deaths. There were 96 combat deaths.

Cognitive health becomes an important factor in our quality of life as we get older. And even though cognitive decline is usually associated with advanced age, it turns out that what our brains go through when we're young can come back to haunt us later in life.  A new study published in the Neurology journal shows that suffering from concussions is linked to increased cognitive decline later in life, even if it was just once and if the patient was observed to have made a full recovery.