Title:Traumatic Brain Injury and Blood-Brain Barrier Cross-Talk
Volume: 15
Issue: 9
Author(s): Mohammad Nasser, Fabienne Bejjani, Mohamad Raad, Hadi Abou-El-Hassan, Sarah Mantash, Amaly Nokkari, Naify Ramadan, Nouhad Kassem, Stefania Mondello, Eva Hamade, Hala Darwish, Kazem Zibara and Firas Kobeissy
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Biomarkers, blood-brain barrier, brain injury, connexins, cytokines, inflammation, neuronal injury, traumatic brain
injury.
Abstract: Traumatic brain injury, often referred to as the “silent epidemic,” is a nondegenerative,
non-congenital insult to the brain due to a blow or penetrating object
that disrupts the function of the brain leading to permanent or temporary impairment
of cognition, physical and psychosocial functions. Traumatic brain injury usually has
poor prognosis for long-term treatment and is a major cause of mortality and
morbidity worldwide; approximately 10 million deaths and/or hospitalizations
annually are directly related to traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury
involves primary and secondary insults. Primary injury occurs during the initial
insult, and results from direct or indirect force applied to the physical structures of
the brain. Secondary injury is characterized by longer-term degeneration of neurons,
glial cells, and vascular tissues due to activation of several proteases, glutamate and pro-inflammatory
cytokine secretion. In addition, there is growing evidence that the blood-brain barrier is involved in the
course of traumatic brain injury pathophysiology and has detrimental effects on the overall pathology of
brain trauma, as will be discussed in this work.
