scholarly journals Relationship Between Hyperhidrosis and Hypothalamic Injury in Patients With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Author(s):  
Sung Ho Jang ◽  
Hyeok Gyu Kwon

Abstract Hyperhidrosis is clinical symptom of various diseases and is an important clinical feature of paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity(PSH). Traumatic brain injury(TBI) is the most common condition associated with PSH, and PSH has been mainly reported in moderate and severe TBI. However, very little has been reported on PSH or hyperhidrosis in mild TBI patients. In this study, we used diffusion tensor imaging(DTI) to investigate the relationship between hyperhidrosis and hypothalamic injury in patients with mild TBI. Seven patients with hyperhidrosis after mild TBI and 21 healthy controls were recruited for this study. The Hyperhidrosis Disease Severity Scale was used for evaluation of sweating at the time of DTI scanning. The fractional anisotropy(FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) DTI parameters were measured in the hypothalamus. In the patient group, the FA values for both sides of the hypothalamus were significantly lower than those of the control group (p<0.05). By contrast, the ADC values for both sides of the hypothalamus were significantly higher in the patient group than in the control group(p<0.05). In conclusion, we detected hypothalamic injuries in patients who showed hyperhidrosis after mild TBI. Based on the results, it appears that hyperhidrosis in patients with mild TBI is related to hypothalamic injury.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung Ho Jang ◽  
Hyeok Gyu Kwon

AbstractThe prefrontal lobe has been considered to be closely related to depression. This study examined the relationship between depression and three prefronto-thalamic tract (PF-TT) regions (the dorsolateral prefronto-thalamic tract [DLPF-TT], ventrolateral prefronto-thalamic tract [VLPF-TT], and the orbitofronto-thalamic tract [OF-TT]) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). Thirty-seven patients with depression following mild TBI were recruited based on Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) scores. Thirty-one normal control subjects were also recruited. The three regions of the PF-TTs were reconstructed using probabilistic tractography and DTT parameters for each of the three PF-TT regions were determined. The tract volume of the DLPF-TT and OF-TT in the patient group showed a significant decrease compared to that of the control group (p < 0.05). The BDI-II score of the patient group showed a moderate negative correlation with the tract volume value of the right (r =  − 0.33) and left (r =  − 0.41) DLPF-TT (p < 0.05). On the other hand, no significant correlations were detected between the BDI-II score of the patient group and the values of the other DTT parameters values for the three PF-TT regions (p > 0.05). Using DTT, depression was found to be closely related to a DLPF-TT injury in patients with mild TBI. We believe that evaluation of the DLPF-TT using DTT would be helpful when assessing patients with depression following mild TBI. These results can provide useful information regarding the proper application of neuromodulation in the management of depression.


Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2070
Author(s):  
Sung-Ho Jang ◽  
Chang-Hoon Bae ◽  
Jae-Woon Kim ◽  
Hyeok-Gyu Kwon

Some studies have reported that a core vestibular projection (CVP) injury is associated with dizziness following a brain injury using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). On the other hand, there has been no DTT study on dizziness caused by a CVP injury in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this study, DTT was used to examine the relationship between dizziness and CVP injury in patients with mild TBI. Forty-three patients with mild TBI and twenty-nine normal subjects were recruited. The patients were classified into two groups based on the dizziness score: group A, patients with a dizziness score less than 2 on the sub-item score for dizziness in the Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire; group B, patients with a dizziness score above 2. The tract volume (TV) in group B was significantly lower than group A and the control group (p < 0.05). By contrast, the TV in group A was similar to the control group (p > 0.05). Regarding the correlation, the dizziness score of all patients showed a strong negative correlation with the TV of the CVP (r = −0.711, p < 0.05). DTT revealed the CVP injury in patients with dizziness after mild TBI. In addition, the severity of dizziness of these patients was closely related to the injury severity of the CVP.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael N. Dretsch ◽  
Rael T. Lange ◽  
Jeffery S. Katz ◽  
Adam Goodman ◽  
Thomas A. Daniel ◽  
...  

Background:There is a high comorbidity of posttraumatic stress (PTS) and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), with largely overlapping symptomatology, in military service members.Objective:To examine white matter integrity associated with PTS and mTBI as assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).Method:Seventy-four active-duty U.S. soldiers with PTS (n = 16) and PTS with co-morbid history of mTBI (PTS/mTBI; n = 28) were compared to a military control group (n = 30). Participants received a battery of neurocognitive and clinical symptom measures. The number of abnormal DTI values was determined (>2 SDs from the mean of the control group) for fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD), and then compared between groups. In addition, mean DTI values from white matter tracts falling into three categories were compared between groups: (i) projection tracts: superior, middle, and inferior cerebellar peduncles, pontine crossing tract, and corticospinal tract; (ii) association tracts: superior longitudinal fasciculus; and (iii) commissure tracts: cingulum bundle (cingulum-cingulate gyrus and cingulum-hippocampus), and corpus callosum.Results:The comorbid PTS/mTBI group had significantly greater traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and post-concussive symptoms, and they performed worse on neurocognitive testing than those with PTS alone and controls. The groups differed greatly on several clinical variables, but contrary to what we hypothesized, they did not differ greatly on primary and exploratory analytic approaches of hetero-spatial whole brain DTI analyses.Conclusion:The findings suggest that psychological health conditions rather than pathoanatomical changes may be contributing to symptom presentation in this population.


PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e2986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qilin Tang ◽  
Xiang Wu ◽  
Weiji Weng ◽  
Hongpeng Li ◽  
Junfeng Feng ◽  
...  

BackgroundParoxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity (PSH) results and aggravates in secondary brain injury, which seriously affects the prognosis of severe traumatic brain injury patients. Although several studies have focused on the treatment of PSH, few have concentrated on its prevention.MethodsNinety post-operation (post-op) severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) patients admitted from October 2014 to April 2016 were chosen to participate in this study. Fifty of the post-op sTBI patients were sedated with dexmedetomidine and were referred as the “dexmedetomidine group” (admitted from May 2015 to April 2016). The other 40 patients (admitted from October 2014 to May 2015) received other sedations and were referred as the “control group.” The two groups were then compared based on their PSH scores and the scores and ratios of those patients who met the criteria of “probable,” “possible” and “unlikely” using the PSH assessment measure (PSH-AM) designed by Baguley et al. (2014). The durations of the neurosurgery intensive care unit (NICU) and hospital stays and the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) values for the two groups were also compared to evaluate the therapeutic effects and the patients’ prognosis.ResultsThe overall PSH score for the dexmedetomidine group was 5.26 ± 4.66, compared with 8.58 ± 8.09 for the control group. The difference between the two groups’ PSH scores was significant (P = 0.017). The score of the patients who met the criterion of “probable” was 18.33 ± 1.53 in the dexmedetomidine group and 22.63 ± 2.97 in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P = 0.045). The ratio of patients who were classified as “unlikely” between the two groups was statistically significant (P = 0.028); that is, 42 (84%) in the dexmedetomidine group and 25 (62.5%) in the control group. The differences in NICU, hospital stays and GOS values between the two groups were not significant.ConclusionDexmedetomidine has a preventive effect on PSH in sTBI patients who have undergone surgery.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 335-340
Author(s):  
Sung Ho Jang ◽  
Seong Ho Kim ◽  
You Sung Seo

AbstractObjectivesWe investigated injuries of the optic radiations (ORs) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) by using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT).MethodsFifty-two consecutive patients who complained of visual problems showed abnormal visual evoked potential (VEP) latency but no abnormality on conventional brain MRI after mild TBI, and fifty normal control subjects were recruited for this study. Subjects’ ORs were reconstructed using DTT, and three DTT parameters (fractional anisotropy [FA], apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC], and tract volume) were measured for each OR.ResultsMean FA value and tract volume of the OR were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the ADC values of the OR between the patient and control groups (p > 0.05). A weak negative correlation was detected between VEP latency and OR fiber number (r = 0.204, p < 0.05).ConclusionsDTT revealed that OR injuries were not detected on the conventional brain MRI scans of patients who complained of visual problems and had abnormal VEP latency after mild TBI. Our results suggest that DTT would be a useful technique for detecting OR injury in patients with mild TBI.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Meier ◽  
Kiwon Lee

Fever is a relatively common occurrence among patients in the intensive care setting. Although the most obvious and concerning etiology is sepsis, drug reactions, venous thromboembolism, and postsurgical fevers are all on the differential diagnosis. There is abundant evidence that fever is detrimental in acute neurologic injury. Worse outcomes are reported in acute stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and traumatic brain injury. In addition to the various etiologies of fever in the intensive care setting, neurologic illness is a risk factor for neurogenic fevers. This primarily occurs in subarachnoid hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury, with hypothalamic injury being the proposed mechanism. Paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity is another source of hyperthermia commonly seen in the population with traumatic brain injury. This review focuses on the detrimental effects of fever on the neurologically injured as well as the risk factors and diagnosis of neurogenic fever.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 855-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia FJ Newcombe ◽  
Guy B Williams ◽  
Joanne G Outtrim ◽  
Doris Chatfield ◽  
M Gulia Abate ◽  
...  

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is often exacerbated by events that lead to secondary brain injury, and represent potentially modifiable causes of mortality and morbidity. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to characterize tissue at-risk in a group of 35 patients scanned at a median of 50 hours after injury. Injury progression was assessed in a subset of 16 patients with two scans. All contusions within the first few days of injury showed a core of restricted diffusion, surrounded by an area of raised apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). In addition to these two well-defined regions, a thinner rim of reduced ADC was observed surrounding the region of increased ADC in 91% of patients scanned within the first 3 days after injury. In patients who underwent serial imaging, the rim of ADC hypointensity was subsumed into the high ADC region as the contusion enlarged. Overall contusion enlargement tended to be more frequent with early lesions, but its extent was unrelated to the time of initial imaging, initial contusion size, or the presence of hemostatic abnormalities. This rim of hypointensity may characterize a region of microvascular failure resulting in cytotoxic edema, and may represent a ‘traumatic penumbra’ which may be rescued by effective therapy.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. e039767
Author(s):  
Zorry Belchev ◽  
Mary Ellene Boulos ◽  
Julia Rybkina ◽  
Kadeen Johns ◽  
Eliyas Jeffay ◽  
...  

IntroductionIndividuals with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (m-sTBI) experience progressive brain and behavioural declines in the chronic stages of injury. Longitudinal studies found that a majority of patients with m-sTBI exhibit significant hippocampal atrophy from 5 to 12 months post-injury, associated with decreased cognitive environmental enrichment (EE). Encouragingly, engaging in EE has been shown to lead to neural improvements, suggesting it is a promising avenue for offsetting hippocampal neurodegeneration in m-sTBI. Allocentric spatial navigation (ie, flexible, bird’s eye view approach), is a good candidate for EE in m-sTBI because it is associated with hippocampal activation and reduced ageing-related volume loss. Efficacy of EE requires intensive daily training, prohibitive within most current health delivery systems. The present protocol is a novel, remotely delivered and self-administered intervention designed to harness principles from EE and allocentric spatial navigation to offset hippocampal atrophy and potentially improve hippocampal functions such as navigation and memory for patients with m-sTBI.Methods and analysisEighty-four participants with chronic m-sTBI are being recruited from an urban rehabilitation hospital and randomised into a 16-week intervention (5 hours/week; total: 80 hours) of either targeted spatial navigation or an active control group. The spatial navigation group engages in structured exploration of different cities using Google Street View that includes daily navigation challenges. The active control group watches and answers subjective questions about educational videos. Following a brief orientation, participants remotely self-administer the intervention on their home computer. In addition to feasibility and compliance measures, clinical and experimental cognitive measures as well as MRI scan data are collected pre-intervention and post-intervention to determine behavioural and neural efficacy.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval has been obtained from ethics boards at the University Health Network and University of Toronto. Findings will be presented at academic conferences and submitted to peer-reviewed journals.Trial registration numberVersion 3, ClinicalTrials.gov Registry (NCT04331392).


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