Charting paths to recovery: Navigating traumatic brain injury comorbidities through graph theory–exploring benefits and challenges

Exploring Comorbidity Networks in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Subjects through Graph Theory: A Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Study

“…Since TBI subjects experience a plethora of comorbidities over time, the study results can be effectively employed for monitoring comorbidities and establishing effective preventive care. Additionally, the approach could be utilized for machine learning-based identification of high-risk patient cohorts (Sudhakar and Mehta 2024).…”

“…Our study employs graph theory approach (Sudhakar and Mehta 2024) to investigate patterns of disease co-occurrence following mTBIs (5 years). We leveraged the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (TBIMS) database (Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Program 2021), a comprehensive database of TBI subjects encompassing longitudinal information about the development of comorbidities.…”

“…TBIs are considered very heterogeneous owing to several factors, and it is widely expected that heterogeneous injuries could give rise to diverse patterns in the development of comorbidities over time (Saatman et al 2008; Maas 2016). Hence, a more practical and economical way for surveillance of comorbidities in TBI subjects is required to prevent the occurrence of injury-associated complications (Sudhakar and Mehta 2024).…”

“…In this study, we propose to apply the principles of graph theory to decipher distinct patterns in the development of comorbidities after mild TBIs (Sudhakar and Mehta 2024). We analysed mTBI subjects five years post-injury using the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems National Database (TBIMS) data (Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Program 2021).…”

“…We analysed mTBI subjects five years post-injury using the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems National Database (TBIMS) data (Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Program 2021). By utilizing the data in the database (Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Program 2021), we constructed network graphs comprising comorbidities as nodes and edges representing the associations between them (Sudhakar and Mehta 2024). We decided to focus on mTBIs since the field is relatively under-explored, and the diagnosis of comorbidities post the condition goes largely unnoticed (Dean and Sterr 2013; Danna-Dos-Santos et al 2018).…”