MRI Markers of Outcome After Severe Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Severe pediatric TBI results in a range of neurocognitive and behavioral deficits with resultant impact on school performance, social functioning, and quality of life. Sixty percent of children suffer from long-term functional impairments after severe TBI, and more than 40% demonstrate deficits in multiple cognitive and psychological domains. Importantly, a recent meta-analysis revealed that rather than catching up to their peers in these domains, children with severe TBI fall further behind over time. These deficits in cognitive and emotional function have a major impact on the child's quality of life after a TBI. A large study recently reported that severe TBI patients demonstrated lower quality of life than children undergoing active treatment for cancer. Considerable variation exists in the severity of impairment within each cognitive domain from patient to patient, likely relating to the mechanism of injury, the type and location of lesion, patient age, and pre-morbid functioning among other factors. While clinical scales such as the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) are useful for assessing injury severity and may provide general prognostic information, they are insufficient to identify risk for specific cognitive deficits. Identifying predictors of impairment within specific domains would aid in directing rehabilitation strategies towards at-risk cognitive domains, thereby improving long-term function and quality of life.

The investigators are partnering with an ongoing pediatric TBI trial (ADAPT Trial: Approaches and Decisions in Acute Pediatric TBI) and will also be enrolling past UW patients and healthy controls. Consistency in timing of follow-up scans, large sample size and access to the ADAPT Trial injury severity data and neuropsychological testing will give this study unprecedented power to assess the relationship between early MRI findings and subsequent atrophy, white matter injury, network connectivity changes and neurocognitive and behavioral impairments.