Brain volumetric correlates of inhibition and cognitive flexibility 16 years following childhood traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Executive functions (EFs), such as inhibition and cognitive flexibility, are essential for everyday functioning, including regulation of socially appropriate emotional responses. These skills develop during childhood and continue maturing into early adulthood. The current study aimed to investigate the very long-term impact of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) on inhibition and cognitive flexibility, and to examine whether global white matter is associated with these abilities. Inhibition, the ability to monitor and control responses, and cognitive flexibility, the ability to switch attention between cognitive demands (Konrad, Gauggel, Manz, & Sch€ oll, 2000), are EF skills particularly vulnerable to childhood TBI (Anderson et al., 2001). Impairments in these domains have been associated with difficulties in everyday functioning, such as regulating socially appropriate emotional and behavioral responses (Beauchamp & Anderson, 2010;Ganesalingam, Yeates, Sanson, & Anderson, 2007;Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000). SignificanceThis study highlights the enduring impact that childhood traumatic brain injury can exert on survivors throughout late adolescence and into early adulthood. Survivors who sustained traumatic brain injury in childhood did not reflect the typical brain behavior relationship that characterized executive function in adulthood. These findings suggest long-lasting changes in the brain behavior connections following childhood traumatic brain injury, thereby serving as a reminder to refrain from downplaying a head injury sustained in early childhood.

Pediatric Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury and Gray Matter Structural Covariance Networks: A Preliminary Longitudinal Investigation

“…Reduced structural covariance was also observed within the CEN, though these results did not survive FWE-correction at the cluster-level and interpretations thus remain tentative. The CEN and associated frontal regions are critically involved in executive control processes [49], which are frequently disrupted by pediatric TBI [16, 71, 72]. Indeed, regional structural MRI studies show reduced cortical thickness and GM volume in the DLPFC in the acute phase post injury [73, 74], which were related to poorer EF in one study [75].…”

Outcomes of Subjective Sleep–Wake Disturbances Twenty Years after Traumatic Brain Injury in Childhood

“…T raumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and acquired disability in children and adolescents, 1 with welldocumented accounts of unfavorable outcomes in cognitive, 2,3 behavioral, 4,5 and neuropsychological 6,7 domains. Emerging evidence also suggests a higher risk of sleep-wake disturbances (SWD) in children and adolescents with TBI 8,9 than in typically developing peers.…”

Reflections on traumatic brain injury research in 2018

“…Although the population at risk for TBI is in large measure male, young, and physically fit, there are significant age‐ and sex‐related differences inherent in acute and more chronic outcomes, especially with respect to children, which reflect the impact of TBI on brain development and long‐term behavioral outcomes as described by Goodrich‐Hunsakera et al and Yu et al (Goodrich‐Hunsaker et al, ; Yu et al, ). For example, the study by Van Horn et al reports a history of pediatric TBI revealing brain morphology similar to early‐onset mild cognitive impairment (Van Horn et al, ).…”