New research may help connect the dots between traumatic brain injury and the risk for memory and other brain-related problems later in life.
Brain imaging technology known as positron emission tomography (PET) shows that people who have had a traumatic brain injury develop so-called “plaques” in their brain like those seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia.
“Our research has shown, for the first time, that PET imaging can show amyloid deposits in the brain after head injury,” said study author Dr. David Menon of the anesthesia division at the University of Cambridge, England. And these deposits can show up within hours of the blow to the head.