Health and Environmental Sciences
The study hopes to improve how we detect and manage mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) also known as concussions, using blood tests for females and males.
We aim to understand whether biomarkers (I.e., GFAP and UCH-L1) can assist in monitoring concussion recovery in females and males. The main study questions are:
1. What are the optimal sampling times for blood biomarkers to determine the prediction of recovery from concussions for females and males?
2. What is the feasibility of blood biomarker data collection in the NZ environment?
3. What are the effects of confounding factors (i.e., sex, age, ethnicity) on concussion blood biomarkers in a patients with a concussion?
To take part in the study you need to be aged 16 or older, reside in New Zealand, be able to provide informed consent, able to provide a blood sample and (for the mTBI group) have sustained a recent mTBI/concussion.
You can NOT take part in the study is you have a suspected or confirmed neurodegenerative conditions or dementia, including, but not limited to, dementia (Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular, Lewy body, or frontotemporal dementia), Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, motor neurone disease and mild cognitive impairment, and no history of acute neurological events or structural brain abnormalities including TBI, stroke, seizure, epilepsy, chronic headache, and brain tumour and no unstable severe medical conditions for example; cancer, severe coagulopathy, terminal illness, end-stage organ failure, acute kidney dysfunction, chronic kidney dysfunction or renal failure.
If you are part of the no recent concussion group, you can NOT take part in this study if you have experienced a concussion within the last 12 months or are experiencing lingering symptoms from a previous concussion.
Approved by the Health and Disability Ethics Committee on 2024-03-14 for March 2024- March 2027.
HDEC 2024 Exp 21888
Christi Essex, brain@aut.ac.nz
You can browse all AUT research projects currently recruiting for participants on the page below.