Halifax research links untreated concussions to brain disorders

A Halifax neurosurgeon is studying the link between concussions and the risk of developing brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and epilepsy.

Dr. Alon Friedman recently published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Neuroscience on a way to detect the damage caused by brain trauma.

The Dalhousie University researcher says damage to something called the blood-brain barrier allows minuscule proteins to leak into the brain and deposit proteins there.

"Once you have dementia, it's unfortunately unlikely to be reversed. So we have to detect it as early as we can. Detecting the vascular pathology is not going to solve the whole problem but this is a significant percentage of patients have vascular disorders and we can detect them and we can hopefully prevent deterioration later on," Friedman told CBC's Information Morning.

He says his research recommends repairing the leakage on a concussed patient to prevent damage.

'We have to detect these patients early'

Leaks are detected using a dye. If there is a leak in the brain, the contrast on an MRI will show the dyed proteins pooling, instead of the dye just washing out of an undamaged brain.

"We found that the most abundant protein in the serum — it’s called albumin — [it] doesn’t exist in the normal brain, and when it goes into the normal brain it initiates a  whole chain of response that gradually changes the function of this nervous network," says Friedman.

"So cells in the brain, nerve cells, instead of working independently, and thinking about different things as we are activating our brain, they are working together in a hyper-synchronized manner, like we see in epileptic patients."

He said he believes this evidence shows a major link between brain trauma and epilepsy.  

As a result, Friedman says this "chain reaction" caused by the leaked proteins results in a degeneration of the nerve cells.

"The ultimate goal of our research is that we can detect it and treat it," he says.

He said the leaks are smaller than the actual red blood cells, so it’s not something that can be fixed with surgery. He says hopefully this insight will result in development of medications or procedures that can prevent these tiny protein leaks across the blood-brain barrier.

"I hope that we are developing a new concept, so the problem of treating neurodegenerative disorders — Alzheimers, and Parkinsons, and other dementia disorders, syndromes — we have to detect these patients early," says Friedman.