Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Year in Review
  • Published:

Traumatic brain injury in 2014

Progress, failures and new approaches for TBI research

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 11, pages 71–72 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

The past year saw the 40th anniversary of the Glasgow Coma Scale, which continues to be effective for monitoring patients with traumatic brain injury. Three new clinical trials were completed, but none revealed beneficial interventions. These failures have prompted exploration of more-subtle therapy targets, novel disease classifications and collaborative research paradigms.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Teasdale, G. et al. The Glasgow Coma Scale at 40 years: standing the test of time. Lancet Neurol. 13, 844–854 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Robertson, C. S. et al. Effect of erythropoietin and transfusion threshold on neurological recovery after traumatic brain injury: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA 312, 36–47 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Skolnick, B. E. et al. A clinical trial of progesterone for severe traumatic brain injury. N. Engl. J. Med. 317, 2467–2476 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Wright, D. W. et al. Very early administration of progesterone for acute traumatic brain injury. N. Engl. J. Med. 317, 2457–2466 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. McMahon, P. et al. Symptomatology and functional outcome in mild traumatic brain injury: results from the prospective TRACK-TBI study. J. Neurotrauma 31, 26–33 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Nordström, P., Michaëlsson, K., Gustafson, Y. & Nordström, A. Traumatic brain injury and young onset dementia: a nationwide cohort study. Ann. Neurol. 75, 374–381 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. DeKosky, S. T., Blennow, K., Ikonomovic, M. D. & Gandy, S. Acute and chronic traumatic encephalopathies: pathogenesis and biomarkers. Nat. Rev. Neurol. 9, 192–200 (2013).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Ramlackhansingh, A. F. et al. Inflammation after trauma: microglial activation and traumatic brain injury. Ann. Neurol. 70, 374–383 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Hong, Y. T. et al. Amyloid imaging with carbon 11-labeled Pittsburgh compound B for traumatic brain injury. JAMA Neurol. 71, 23–31 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. International Initiative for Traumatic Brain Injury Research[online], (2014).

Download references

Acknowledgements

D.K.M. is supported by a Senior Investigator Award of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK, and by the Neurosciences Theme of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. D.K.M. and A.I.R.M. are both supported by a 7th Framework Programme grant from the European Union (Grant No: 602150).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Box 93, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ, UK

    David K. Menon

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Antwerp and University of Antwerp, Wilrijkstraat 10, Edegem, 2650, Belgium

    Andrew I. R. Maas

Authors
  1. David K. Menon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrew I. R. Maas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David K. Menon.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Menon, D., Maas, A. Progress, failures and new approaches for TBI research. Nat Rev Neurol 11, 71–72 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2014.261

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2014.261

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing