5 Years of Progress with the Brain Injury Research Fund
Categories: THE Challenge!
Lauren Moore, Marketing and Communications Manager, BIAA
In 2019, the Brain Injury Association of America established its Brain Injury Research Fund, setting a goal of finding cures for chronic brain injury. The program is grounded in the understanding that for some people, brain injury evolves into a chronic health condition that can cause or accelerate multiple diseases. To date, BIAA has awarded more than $300,000 to 21 recipients through the program.
BIAA identified five research priorities for the 2024 competition, each of which relates to the chronic phase of brain injury:
- Progressive Degenerative Processes
- Late Consequences of Childhood TBI
- Excess Mortality
- Chronic Health Condition Management
- Social Determinants of Health
Earlier this year, BIAA awarded five grants totaling nearly $85,000 that will go towards brain injury research. This year’s recipients include two Brain Injury Scholar Seed Grants, one Young Investigator Seed Grant, and two Dissertation Grants.
2024 Brain Injury Scholar Seed Grants
Project: Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Signs of Accelerated Neurocognitive Aging in Young Adults
Jaclyn Stephens, PhD Colorado State University
Amount: $24,805
People with repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) have an increased risk for developing diseases, like dementia, as they age. There is a need to better understand disease development and to devise interventions that can prevent it. Stephens’ proposed project works toward both. There is some evidence that young adults with repetitive mTBI have signs of premature aging which may contribute to disease development. Thus, Stephens plans to further evaluate young adults with repetitive mTBI to test for other signs of premature aging and find brain behavior features to target in future intervention work.
Project: Pre-injury Sleep Quality as a Risk Factor for Increased Alcohol Consumption Following TBI
Rachel Rowe, PhD University of Colorado Boulder
Amount: $25,000
While research has investigated the effects of TBI on alcohol use, no study has considered pre-injury sleep quality as a risk factor for increased alcohol consumption post-TBI. Rowe’s project will investigate if sleep fragmentation pre-TBI alters chronic alcohol consumption and worsens acute and chronic functional outcome post-TBI. This project will also examine neuroinflammation as a mechanism that modulates alcohol consumption. An understanding of how pre-injury sleep quality contributes to chronic alcohol consumption following TBI will improve prognostication efforts and early intervention for TBI survivors.
2024 Young Investigator Seed Grant
Project: Physical Activity and BDNF in Neurobehavioral Recovery from Pediatric TBI
Bailey Petersen, PhD University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
amount: $25,000
Mentor: Amerey Treble-Barna, PhD
There is a critical need for therapies to promote neurobehavior in children with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (msTBI). In adults, physical activity (PA) improves neurobehavior, in part by increasing expression of a biomarker of TBI recovery, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Using wearable sensors to measure PA, Petersen’s project aims to (1) characterize PA in the first six months after TBI and (2) identify aspects of PA associated with neurobehavior. This study will advance the field of pediatric TBI by providing a clear understanding of the therapeutic potential of PA after TBI.
2024 Brain Injury Dissertation Grants
Project: A Social Ecological View of Participation for Persons of Color Living with Traumatic Brain Injury
Judith Wilson, New York University
Amount: $5,000
Mentor: Gerald Voelbel, PhD
Wilson’s study explores how persons of color living with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience participation in relation to the immediate support, community, and societal systems. The persistence of racial disparities in the outcomes for persons with TBI needs to be addressed to improve health outcomes, by detailing the social environments that support or hinder participation. Data from interviews and behavioral observations will be collected to investigate people of color’s experiences of participation after TBI, and those experiences’ relationships with their social environments.
Project: Acute Neuropsychological Profiles of Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury
Mary Simons, Marquette University
Mentor: James B. Hoelzle, PhD
Amount: $5,000
Simons’ research will identify acute profiles of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) during inpatient hospitalization. Variables that are predictive of chronic cognitive and psychological outcomes (e.g., pre-injury adaptive functioning; post-injury cognitive functioning) will be used to establish profiles. Differences in long-term cognitive and psychological outcomes, and health care utilization, will be investigated among the identified profiles. Identifying homogenous groups of acute pediatric TBI profiles that are predictive of outcomes will facilitate personalized treatment.
Recently, BIAA had the opportunity to check in with past grant recipients and receive updates on their projects.
Past Grant Recipients
Project: Using Mobile Technologies for Research Engaging Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Pain
2022 Seed Grant Recipient
Michael Williams, PhD University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Chronic pain is common among people with TBI, and typical clinic-based evaluations of pain may not fully capture the patient’s day-to-day experience. Williams used BIAA’s seed grant to implement a pilot study that utilized mobile technology (a smartwatch and an app) to track study participants’ pain symptoms as well as their mood (including anxiety and depression), sleep quality, and activity levels over a four-week period. Participants would also complete a traditional survey at the clinic at the beginning and end of that four-week period.
“That gave us objective measures of movement and activity, objective data that would inform the subjective ratings that people provided to us,” Williams explained. “The day-to-day assessments allow us the opportunity to consider what might be relevant. For example, we can look at their sleep patterns the night before and consider how that relates to any pain the next day, or we can look at whether mood and pain relate over time, or the emotional influence on pain.”
Giving participants the ability to log their symptoms in real-time, rather than requiring them to recall and relay their moods and pain symptoms retroactively, also helps to sidestep the memory or attention difficulties that often affect people with TBI.
BIAA’s grant enabled Williams to purchase the smartwatches and subscription for the mobile survey app he and his team used to conduct their research. “Technology makes life easier, but it’s not free,” he commented. It also allowed Williams to pay the study participants, which he believes is good practice.
Project: Complement Mediated Cognitive Decline and Neuroinflammation Chronically Post Repetitive Brain Injury
2022 Seed Grant Recipient
Khalil Mallah, PhD Medical University of South Carolina
history of TBI, even years after the initial injury, can result in cognitive deficits similar to those seen in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Mallah proposed that the complement system – a major part of the neuroimmune response after injury – is a major contributor to this phenomenon, and hypothesized that inhibiting this system would prevent such deficits seen years after TBI.
The seed grant Mallah received from BIAA allowed him to perform experiments as well as behavioral analysis using a therapeutic approach. “In the lab, we used an inhibitor of one of the most important parts of immune system, the inhibitor that inhibits C3 convertase. The complement inhibitor showed that if we treat mice with it, and then look at their behavior one year later, it stopped them from developing cognitive deficits and their behavioral performance was comparable to their counterpart mice,” he explained. “I hope to use the results we got from this grant to pursue research in the future.” He added that he will hear back in August if he received an additional grant that would allow him to continue to pursue his TBI research. “The results from the study made possible by the BIAA grant would be opening a very big door for me to pursue in my future research career.”
Project: Examining the Use of Self-Regulation in Behavior Change in Older Adults: A Mixed Method Study
2023 Dissertation Grant Recipient
Amy Kemp, University of Georgia
Although older adults have the highest rates of TBI incidence, mostly from falls, little research has examined rehabilitative management in older adults. Health-behavior changes are key to maintaining health and safety. Kemp’s mixed-method study collects pilot data from a sample of older adults with TBI. Participants use a self-regulation strategy to increase the adoption and execution of fall prevention recommendations. These findings will identify factors specific to participation and inform efforts to improve safety and self-management.
“I was looking at, if there are any cognitive or psychosocial predictors involved in self-management among older adults with brain injury,” Kemp explained. “I was looking to collect a meaningful enough sample in order to deduce if there was a difference in people with and without brain injury, in aging, and trying to address the issue of what it looks like to age with brain injury, what are the chronic effects, and how that might impact self-management.” Prior to receiving the grant, Kemp had collected data on adults without TBI. The grant she received from BIAA allowed her to broaden her population base and include people with TBI, as well as include people from a nationwide pool.
“What the BIAA dissertation grant allowed me to do was, it provided me the funds to complete the study, and to make it computerized, offer a validated neurocognitive test administered virtually, and it allowed me to pay my participants for their time and effort. It made a big difference,” she explained. “People wanted to know their cognition, and have a ‘status report’ on what it’s like to age with brain injury.” She added that this tends to be a population with lower opportunities for monetary support, that is also looking to be involved in something impactful. “Being able to support them was meaningful for me,” she added. “I am really grateful for BIAA. It was a wonderful experience and something that really launched my own learning and career.”
Kemp is currently in the revision stage of her dissertation.
Project: Establishing the Mechanisms of TBI-mediated Susceptibility to Alzheimer’s Disease
2023 Seed Grant Recipient
Joel Blanchard, PhD Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Although we know that TBI alters how the human brain ages, increasing the susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia later in life, the mechanisms underlying this association are largely unknown. Because of this, there are limited diagnostics and therapeutics for intervention. Blanchard proposed investigating Alzheimer’s disease using highly tractable human brain tissue engineered from patient stem cells. When applying for this grant, Blanchard’s models had already discovered two FDA-approved drugs that improve memory in mice with Alzheimer’s disease; he proposed applying these models to dissect the mechanistic connections between TBI, genetic risk factors, and Alzheimer’s disease.
The lab where Blanchard conducts his research primarily studies Alzheimer’s disease, developing human brain tissue which allows them to replay the events of Alzheimer’s disease in a controlled setting and ask questions about what’s going wrong.
“The seed grant from BIAA allowed us to take the models we’ve been using for Alzheimer’s disease and develop ways to apply the proxies of TBI to them,” Blanchard explained. “There have been pretty exciting results, when we applied a contusion of force to the mini brain models, we can see the cells starting to move and respond to the injury. This support lays the foundation for more broad studies that could look at these mechanisms and try to develop therapies around them.”