Traumatic brain injury can increase the risk of developing dementia by almost 70%. Now researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute will study why that is.
Researchers at Barrow received a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to do a four-year study. Chia-Ling Phuah is an associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery there.
"In the United States alone, there's an estimated 3 million new cases of traumatic brain injury a year," Phuah said.
And many of these people will go on to suffer from long-term effects, like developing Alzheimer’s disease.
"So, what we're doing is, we're looking at genetic factors, we're also looking at individual factors, such as how severe the head injury is; the number of head injuries one sustains — does that play a role? Does age play a role? Does the time in which the head injury happens during our lifespan play a role?" Phuah said.
The goal is to eventually develop new drugs that could be given to those who have sustained a TBI, so that they do not develop Alzheimer's disease.
"By identifying those factors, that could be like a roadmap to guide us to develop new drugs that we could give to people who have sustained head injury."