Is Your Child Still Riding a Bike Without a Helmet? They're at Risk of Serious Health Issues
New American research reveals: Head injuries are much more severe than you thought. A brain injury can lead to genetic changes that drastically increase the risk of several serious illnesses.
(Photo: shutterstock)Think that the biggest risk of biking without a helmet is a head injury? Wait until you read the findings of the new study from UCLA.
Researchers trained 20 rats to escape from a maze. They then simulated head injury effects causing brain damage in 10 of the rats. When the rats were put back in the maze, those that had experienced injury took 25% longer to escape.
To understand what changed in the rats, the researchers analyzed the genome of both groups - those that experienced injury and those that did not. Among those with head injuries, the researchers discovered that no fewer than 268 genes underwent changes due to the injury.
More than a hundred of the genes altered in the brain-injured rats are genes also present in humans, all known for their connection to various neurological and psychiatric problems. Sixteen of these genes, for example, are ones whose changes in the rats predict a human predisposition to develop Alzheimer's.
Summarizing the study results, researchers found that a brain injury from a strong head blow can create genetic changes that put the injured at high risk for numerous diseases and syndromes, including stroke, ADHD, autism, depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, and more.
The researchers' assumption is that an injury affecting the brain triggers a response in several main genes, which in turn cause changes in hundreds of other genes. The process can occur in various ways. For instance, the injury may eventually cause genes to produce proteins in abnormal forms, or it might alter the number of gene expression copies in each cell. Such changes prevent the gene from functioning properly, which can lead to the mentioned diseases.
The researchers noted that it's been known for many years that people who have suffered head injuries, like soldiers and football players, are at risk of developing neurological diseases at relatively young ages. However, until now, the mechanism turning a concussion or other brain injury into a disease was unknown.
