Traumatic brain injury and neuro-monitoring
About our research
Today, traumatic brain injury is one of the most common causes of death as well as why people are living with acquired disabilities. Currently, there is a lack of well-established medical treatments for patients with TBI. Therefore, advancing the research into improved management of TBI is very important. Our overall goals are to better understand the underlying damage mechanisms at TBI and how we can best monitor these and in the long run find ways to improve treatment based on this.
Research project
Stockholm score of lesion development on computerized tomography following mild traumatic brain injury - SELECT-TBI
In collaboration with the emergency hospitals in Region Stockholm, we are trying to create improved predictions models in order to determine which patients that will have lesions on computerized tomography after mild traumatic brain injury. As a secondary aim, we want to study those that deteriorate and require escalated levels of care (e.g. transfer to a neurosurgical center). This multicenter study is done in collaboration with Norrtälje Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, Danderyd Hospital, Södersjukhuset and St. Göran's Hospital.
New diagnostic tools and treatment for Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury and small vessel disease
Together with a number of researchers, including Maria Eriksdotter, Per Nilsson, Urban Lendhal and Helena Karlström (Karolinska Institutet) we intend to study how vessels and associated inflammatory cells are affected in human and preclinical models in a number of different neurological diseases. Our hope is that we will better develop markers to see how affected patients become from, among other things, neurodegeneration after these types of diseases.
Proteomic profiling after traumatic brain injury
We also have ongoing projects with Professor Peter Nilsson at SciLifeLab, Kungliga tekniska högskolan (KTH), where we use protein arrays to profile protein expression of several proteins as well as inflammatory mediators from different body fluids in patients with traumatic brain injury. The goal here is to study different types of damage mechanisms after the traumatic brain injury, including how the blood-brain barrier is affected and how different inflammatory proteins interact.
Neuroinflammation in traumatic brain injury
This research is mainly ongoing at the University of Cambridge, UK. We collaborate on human studies involving anti-inflammatory medications with the goal of improving the quality of life after injury. We also collaborate in pre-clinical in vitro studies where cell cultures are exposed to the same type of neuroinflammatory stimulation you see in humans in the brain after injury.
Long-term follow-up after traumatic brain injury (Long-TBI)
While there seems to be an association between neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation following traumatic brain injury, the exact implications are unknown. Therefore, we want to follow up patients 10-15 years after the initial injury to study whether patients with more severe injuries have an increased inflammatory activity. This will partly be studied with new radiological techniques, but also by studying different proteins, cellular processes, and metabolites in body fluids to see if these are affected several years after the brain injury.
Research support
Currently, the research in the group is supported from:
Region Stockholm
Erling-Persson Family Foundation
Strategic research area neuroscience (StratNeuro).
Previous funding bodies include:
The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden, Mattsons Stiftelse)
The Swedish Society for Medical Research (Svenska Sällskapet för Medicinsk Forskning)
The Swedish Society of Medicine (Svenska Läkaresällskapet).