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Recovery from concussions more difficult for older patients

Study findings provide evidence for differential neural plasticity across different ages
Washington: Older individuals may have a more difficult time recovering from concussion, according to a new study. Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), or concussion, accounts for 75 per cent of all TBI and represents an important public health problem. Difficulty in working memory is frequently reported in patients after concussion.
However, neuropsychological tests, computed tomography
(CT) and conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
generally fail to show abnormal findings in these patients. Functional MRI (fMRI) has been increasingly used in assessing patients with MTBI. "Old age has been recognised as an independent predictor of worse outcome from concussion, but most previous studies were performed on younger adults," said the study's lead
author, David Yen-Ting Chen, from the Department of Radiology at Shuang-Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, in New Taipei City, Taiwan.
For the study, Chen and colleagues used fMRI to evaluate the effect of age on working memory performance and functional activation in the brain after MTBI. The researchers performed fMRI exams on 13 young adults (21-30 years old) and 13 older adults (51-68 years old) with
MTBI and 26 age- and gender-matched controls.
The first fMRI scan was performed within one month post-injury. A follow-up scan was performed six weeks after the first exam. The researchers then analysed post-concussion symptoms, neuropsychological test results and working memory activity in both groups. The analysis showed that while performing working memory tasks, the young patients with concussion had initial
activation that was greater than normal, known as hyperactivation, compared to young controls in the right precuneus and right inferior parietal gyrus of the brain, whereas the older patients had hypoactivation (less than normal) compared to older controls in the right precuneus and right inferior frontal gyrus.
In comparing the patients in initial and follow-up study,
the young patients had significantly reduced post-concussion
symptom score at follow-up than at the time of the initial exam, but no significant change of the post-concussion symptom score was observed in the older patients, who also showed persistent hypoactivation. "Taken together, these findings provide evidence for differential neural plasticity across different ages, with
potential prognostic and therapeutic implications," said the study's co-author, Ying-Chi Tseng, from Shuang-Ho Hospital. "The results suggest that MTBI might cause a more profound and lasting effect in older patients," Tseng said. The study was published in the journal Radiology.
( Source : PTI )
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