Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity in the United States.  Our research focuses on developing MRI based biomarkers to improve our understanding of severe TBI and mild TBI.

Severe TBI

Current clinical tools are not reliable for detecting consciousness or predicting recovery in patients with severe TBI. Bedside behavioural examination may be limited by a patient’s neurological deficits, medication or an examiner’s subjective interpretation of ambiguous responses. These limitations lead to misclassifying conscious patients as unconscious. We developed an imaging and EEG biomarker that was able to successfully detect covert consciousness in these patients. Learn more in our publication, “Early detection of consciousness in patients with acute severe traumatic brain injury”, here: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/9/2399/3979437.

Mild TBI

The majority of mild TBI patients recover within a few months, but for up to 15% symptoms persist, and can have a devastating impact on work, and interpersonal relationships leading potentially to long-term disability. Yet despite the high prevalence and debilitating effects of post-concussive syndrome (PCS), the pathophysiological basis underlying this disorder remains unknown with little available therapies for its victims. These patients typically show little or no abnormalities on conventional brain imaging but exhibit a broad spectrum of neurocognitive dysfunction, including confusion, attention and executive functioning deficits, and impairments in memory. Repetitive concussive and subconcussive brain trauma can increase the risk for development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy that is associated with a lifetime of debilitation. We seek to develop individualized, objective quantitative measures of risk for further injury if another concussion were to be experienced using advanced MRI methodologies.