Worldwide it is estimated that 69 million brain injuries occur each year Dewan, et al, 2018). This number is an underestimate of the total number as many concussions are not reported. There is increasing evidence that traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a risk factor for the development of dementia with single or multiple injuries linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and other forms of dementia. Understanding the changes in the brain that result in the progress of pathology will aid in the development of guidelines for the treatment of brain injury and concussion. At the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre we are investigating the potential links of TBI and dementia through a variety of projects including cohort studies, as well as cell culture and animal models to examine the cellular and functional effects of brain injury on Alzheimer’s disease related pathology. Of interest is the role inflammation plays in the onset and progression of disease. In the brain microglia (shown below in red) regulate inflammatory processes and have an intimate relationship with neurons (green). Neurons signal together to form networks and it is when these networks begin to degenerate that disease symptoms start to appear. How microglia may be harnessed to prevent the degeneration is a key research question.
Objectives: To investigate the links between brain trauma and the pathological changes that lead to the development of dementia
Research Team: Dr Jenna Ziebell, Professor James Vickers, Professor Anna King, Associate Professor Alison Canty, Dr Matthew Kirkcaldie, Olivia Holloway (PhD student), Yasmine Doust (PhD student)
Collaborators: Dr Nicole Bye
Funding: Wicking Dementia Centre, University of Tasmania, ARC Discovery Grant DP140103094
Reference:
Dewan, M.C., Rattani, A., Gupta, S., Baticulon, R.E., Hung, Y.C., Punchak, M., Agrawal, A., Adeleye, A.O., Shrime, M.G., Rubiano, A.M., Rosenfeld, J.V., Park, K.B. (2018). Estimating the global incidence of traumatic brain injury. J Neurosurg. 2018 Apr 1:1-18. doi: 10.3171/2017.10.JNS17352
