Frontiers in Traumatic Brain Injury 2018

For the second year running, researchers and clinicians from St Mary’s & Imperial College London brought together UK and international experts in traumatic brain injury (TBI) for the two-day Frontiers in TBI conference.

The 2018 programme spanned many aspects of TBI, from management and psychology to developments in computational neuroscience and technological innovations. Attendees were entertained by interactive debates on the questions “are we on the brink of a CTE epidemic?” and “symptoms lasting longer than 3 months after minor head trauma are usually due to a functional disorder” and also inspired by the moving memoirs of TBI survivor Ben Clench.

We were delighted to see two posters at the conference presenting research currently being funded by The Drake Foundation. Dr Etienne Laverse (University College London) presented a poster entitled White matter integrity and cognitive outcomes in elite rugby union players exposed to head impacts: a preliminary report, it was great to see some preliminary imaging data from our biomarker study of head injury in rugby and we look forward to seeing more soon.

With the latest from our study on head injury, cognition & imaging correlates of dementia in the Insight 1946 cohort Dr Sarah-Naomi James was selected to take part in the poster podium session and shared her poster Effects of TBI with loss of consciousness and subsequent cognitive trajectories with attendees. We’re delighted to be funding a small part of the extensive work involving the 1946 birth cohort population and always enjoy hearing about this project.