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Pathophysiology and Treatment of Memory Dysfunction After Traumatic Brain Injury

  • Neurotrauma (M Kumar, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Memory is fundamental to everyday life, and cognitive impairments resulting from traumatic brain injury (TBI) have devastating effects on TBI survivors. A contributing component to memory impairments caused by TBI is alteration in the neural circuits associated with memory function. In this review, we aim to bring together experimental findings that characterize behavioral memory deficits and the underlying pathophysiology of memory-involved circuits after TBI. While there is little doubt that TBI causes memory and cognitive dysfunction, it is difficult to conclude which memory phase, i.e., encoding, maintenance, or retrieval, is specifically altered by TBI. This is most likely due to variation in behavioral protocols and experimental models. Additionally, we review a selection of experimental treatments that hold translational potential to mitigate memory dysfunction following injury.

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Author notes

  1. Rosalia Paterno and Kaitlin A. Folweiler contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3615 Civic Center Boulevard, Abramson Research Center, Rm. 816-h, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Rosalia Paterno

  2. Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Joseph Stokes, Jr. Research Institute, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3615 Civic Center Boulevard, Abramson Research Center, Rm. 816-h, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Kaitlin A. Folweiler & Akiva S. Cohen

  3. Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3615 Civic Center Boulevard, Abramson Research Center, Rm. 816-h, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Akiva S. Cohen

Authors
  1. Rosalia Paterno
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  2. Kaitlin A. Folweiler
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  3. Akiva S. Cohen
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Correspondence to Rosalia Paterno.

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Conflict of Interest

Rosalia Paterno and Kaitlin A. Folweiler declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Akiva S. Cohen and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia hold a provisional patent for the use of BCAAs as a therapeutic intervention for traumatic brain injury: U.S. Provisional Patent Application Nos. 61/883,526 and 61/812,352, filed under the title “Compositions and methods for the treatment of brain injury.”

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

In referenced studies from our own laboratory, all animal procedures were approved by the CHOP IACUC committee.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Neurotrauma

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Paterno, R., Folweiler, K.A. & Cohen, A.S. Pathophysiology and Treatment of Memory Dysfunction After Traumatic Brain Injury. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 17, 52 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-017-0762-x

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