New Biomarker Found to Predict Concussion Outcomes

A potential biomarker of the brain’s neuroplasticity may predict improvements in symptoms and quality of life after a concussion, researchers say. In a single-center, case-control study, patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) who had more abnormally high fractional anisotropy (FA) had fewer concussive symptoms and better quality of life a year after their injury than those who had less of the biomarker, according to Michael Lipton, MD, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., and colleagues. They reported their findings during a press briefing at the Radiological Society of North America meeting.

“If abnormally high FA represents neuroplastic effects, and if that’s how people recover from brain injury, it would be possible to use this in translational studies to identify the underlying mechanisms of pathology and to identify therapies that don’t look at how we fix the damage, but how we enhance the brain’s ability to compensate for that damage,” Dr. Lipton said during the briefing. For more information, click here to read the full release.