Article: Traumatic Brain Injury Causes Intestinal Damage

[Andy]

Another of my "this looks kind of interesting" posts.

Summary: Researchers have identified a link between traumatic brain injury and intestinal changes. A new study reports the intestinal changes may contribute to increased risk of developing infections and could worsen brain damage in TBI patients.

Source: University of Maryland School of Medicine.

University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have found a two-way link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and intestinal changes. These interactions may contribute to increased infections in these patients, and may also worsen chronic brain damage.

This is the first study to find that TBI in mice can trigger delayed, long-term changes in the colon and that subsequent bacterial infections in the gastrointestinal system can increase posttraumatic brain inflammation and associated tissue loss. The findings were published recently in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

“These results indicate strong two-way interactions between the brain and the gut that may help explain the increased incidence of systemic infections after brain trauma and allow new treatment approaches,” said the lead researcher, Alan Faden, MD, the David S. Brown Professor in Trauma in the Departments of Anesthesiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at UMSOM, and director of the UMSOM Shock, Trauma and Anesthesiology Research Center.

http://neurosciencenews.com/tbi-intestines-8137/

 

[Woolie]

Its a mouse study. Sad face for: 1) the fate of the mice who experienced this barbarism; and 2) the lack of caution applied when extending this finding to human TBI.

 

[Diwi9]

Its a mouse study. Sad face for: 1) the fate of the mice who experienced this barbarism; and 2) the lack of caution applied when extending this finding to human TBI.

I thought about the barbarism too. But, isn't there some common sense in this study too? If you have a TBI, signaling pathways can be disrupted (to the GI or other organs). When things don't run right in the GI, havoc can arise and potentially compound problems over time.

If there is a causal relationship, it wouldn't surprise me if many nurses and techs at brain injury rehab facilities have already intuitively inferred a link.

 

[Alvin]

the fate of the mice who experienced this barbarism

Agreed

the lack of caution applied when extending this finding to human TBI

Since it would be unethical to perform this type of experiment in humans we use animal surrogates, with the knowledge that the data may not hold species to species but in the hope there are parallels as there often are.
All that said i do not condone doing torturous treatments on animals

All that said there does seem to be a multitude of links from gut to brain, something worth researching but at this point firm conclusions are rather premature, or at least at an early level. For example severing the vagus nerve has been found to reduce the incidence of Parkinsons disease and its been found that alpha synuclein can travel from the gut to the brain (its clumping and killing brain cells being the dominant theory of the disease mechanism of Parkinsons).