Sleep Plays a Role In Healing Traumatic Brain Injuries

Researchers develop techniques to measure the brain's waste-clearance system through MRIs.

Study on military veterans suggests that sound sleep plays a critical role in healing traumatic brain injury. Researchers collected data from 56 veterans between 2011 and 2019. //

The research team used a new technique involving magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate the enlargement of perivascular spaces surrounding blood vessels in the brain. This enlargement occurs due to aging and is associated with dementia development.

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Participants who slept poorly were more likely to have enlarged spaces and more post-concussive symptoms.

Juan Picantino, lead author, said, "This has huge implications for the armed forces as well as civilians. This study suggests sleep may play an important role in clearing waste from the brain after traumatic brain injury - and if you don't sleep very well, you might not clean your brain as efficiently."

The new technique of analyzing MRIs, developed by study co-authors Daniel Schwartz and Erin Boespflug, under Lisa Silbert's supervision, measures changes in the brain's perivascular spaces (part of the brain's waste clearance system known as the glymphatic system).

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"We were able to measure this structure very precisely and count the number, location, and diameter of channels," Piantino said.

Co-author Jeffrey Iliff has previously researched the glymphatic system and its role in neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease, finding that during sleep, this brain-wide network clears away metabolic proteins that would otherwise build up in the brain.

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"Imagine your brain is generating all this waste, and everything is working fine," Piantino said. "Now you get a concussion. The brain generates much more waste that it has to remove, but the system becomes plugged."

He adds that in the future, this method can be used to predict who will be at higher risk for cognitive problems like dementia in older adults.

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The lead author states that improving sleep is a modifiable habit that can be improved through various methods such as better sleep hygiene habits.

"This study puts sleep at the epicenter of recovery in traumatic brain injury," Piantino said.

Source-Medindia