Pharmaceuticals
Drug Hope for Brain Injury
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Drugs used to treat Alzheimer's disease could help young people with brain injuries, researchers at Cambridge University have found.
The most common cause of death and disability in young people is traumatic brain injury as a result of road traffic accidents, cycle accidents and serious falls.
Young adults who survive often suffer from chronic cognitive problems, which can affect their ability to concentrate, learn and remember.
Now Cambridge researchers are hopeful that drugs used to treat the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease may prove to be an effective treatment for problems caused by head injury. In a study funded by the Medical Research Council, Dr Claire Salmond and colleagues from Cambridge's Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre and Departments of Anaesthetics, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, examined a group of 31 young adults who had survived a moderate-to-severe head injury.
The volunteers underwent extensive testing to determine the precise problems they were having, together with brain scans using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to examine the location and extent of brain injury.
Researchers found the drugs appeared to help parts of the brain associated with problems in sustaining attention, learning and memory.
Dr Salmond said of the study, published in the January issue of the journal Brain: "We are very excited that this study may point the way to an effective treatment for this type of cognitive deficits.
"These problems frequently affect a young person's ability to return to higher education or to work and, therefore, the impact on quality of life and mood can be devastating."
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