Capturing the nuances of brain injury
Commenting on the study as a discussant, neurosurgeon Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD, of the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center and CentraCare in Minneapolis, suggested that the future work should focus on issues including the wide-ranging mechanisms that could explain the seizure activity.
“For example, it’s known that posttraumatic epilepsy or seizures can be triggered by abnormal conductivity due to multiple different mechanisms associated with brain injury, such as endocrine dysfunction, cortical-spreading depression, and many others,” said Dr. Samadani, who has been a researcher on the TRACK-TBI study.
Factors ranging from genetic differences to comorbid conditions such as alcoholism can play a role in brain injury susceptibility, Dr. Samadani added. Furthermore, outcome measures currently available simply may not capture the unknown nuances of brain injury.
“We have to ask, are these an all-or-none phenomena, or is aberrant electrical activity after brain injury a continuum of dysfunction?” Dr. Samadani speculated.
“I would caution that we are likely underestimating the non–easily measurable consequences of brain injury,” she said. “And the better we can quantitate susceptibility, classify the nature of injury and target acute management, the less posttraumatic epilepsy/aberrant electrical activity our patients will have.”
Dr. Burke and Dr. Samadani disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.