Abstract #0907

Brooks W, Aupperle R, Savage C, Schmitt A, Malone T, Lierman J, Ladesich L, Hall S

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex clinical entity with few effective methods for assessing severity of injury and for predicting outcome. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy provides a powerful means to assess brain metabolism following TBI. The overall aim was to determine whether sampling a large volume of brain issue using spectroscopic imaging approaches was sensitive to severity of brain injury. We found that averaged metabolites were significantly altered in patients following TBI. We also found that metabolite markers of membrane injury and of glial activation could discriminate mild injury from severe. These results might be helpful to elucidate cellular and molecular mechanisms.