With the contribution from more than one hundred CNS neurotrauma experts, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account on the latest developments in the area of neurotrauma including biomarker studies, experimental models, diagnostic methods, and neurotherapeutic intervention strategies in brain injury research. It discusses neurotrauma mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and neurocognitive and neurobehavioral deficits. Also included are medical interventions and recent neurotherapeutics used in the area of brain injury that have been translated to the area of rehabilitation research. In addition, a section is devoted to models of milder CNS injury, including sports injuries.

Neurotrauma: A Comprehensive Textbook on Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury aims to bring together the latest clinical practice and research in the field of two forms of trauma to the central nervous system: namely traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). This volume details the latest research and clinical practice in the treatment of neurotrauma, in a comprehensive but easy-to-follow format. Neurotrauma is a valuable resource for any clinician involved in caring for the TBI, clinical research professionals, researchers, medical and graduate students, and nurse specialists.

Every year, around the world, between 250,000 and 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury (SCI). Those with an SCI are two to five times more likely to die prematurely than people without a spinal cord injury, with worse survival rates in low- and middle-income countries. Dynamic aerobic requires integrated physiologic responses across the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, autonomic, pulmonary, thermoregulatory, and immunologic systems. Moreover, regular aerobic exercise beneficially impacts these same systems, reducing the risk for a range of diseases and maladies. This book will present comprehensive information on the unique physiologic effects of SCI and the potential role of exercise in treating and mitigating these effects. In addition, it will incorporate work from scientists across a number of disciplines and have contributors at multiple levels of investigation and across physiologic systems. Furthermore, SCI can be considered an accelerated form of aging due to the severely restricted physical inactivity imposed, usually at an early age. Therefore, the information presented may have a broader importance to the physiology of aging as it relates to inactivity. Lastly, the need for certain levels of regular aerobic exercise to engender adaptations beneficial to health is not altered by the burden of an SCI. Indeed, the amounts of exercise necessary may be even greater than the able-bodied due to ‘passive’ ambulation. This book will also address the potential health benefits for those with an SCI that can be realized if a sufficient exercise stimulus is provided.

Developing effective therapeutic strategies for the injured central nervous system to treat such conditions as spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and stroke, is one of the major challenges in current neuroscience and clinical neurology research. Increasing evidence suggests that after trauma, central neurons acquire certain developmental-like characteristics. Thus, the vast amount of data available on neuronal development could be utilized in trauma research as well. However, the data on the developmental-like properties of mature injured neurons has not been extensively summarized. This book provides a comprehensive review on the topic with the special focus on neurotrophin signalling, post-traumatic chloride homeostasis and the thyroid hormones. The review is followed by the presentation of the novel data on the interconnection of the reviewed areas and the impact of this interplay on neuronal survival. Possible therapeutic applications of the old and new findings are discussed. The book will be interesting for both basic researches and clinicians working in the dynamic field of the central nervous system trauma.

An estimated 11,000 spinal cord injuries occur each year in the United States and more than 200,000 Americans suffer from maladies associated with spinal cord injury. This includes paralysis, bowel and bladder dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, respiratory impairment, temperature regulation problems, and chronic pain. During the last two decades, longstanding beliefs about the inability of the adult central nervous system to heal itself have been eroded by the flood of new information from research in the neurosciences and related fields. However, there are still no cures and the challenge of restoring function in the wake of spinal cord injuries remains extremely complex. Spinal Cord Injury examines the future directions for research with the goal to accelerate the development of cures for spinal cord injuries. While many of the recommendations are framed within the context of the specific needs articulated by the New York Spinal Cord Injury Research Board, the Institute of Medicine's panel of experts looked very broadly at research priorities relating to future directions for the field in general and make recommendations to strengthen and coordinate the existing infrastructure. Funders at federal and state agencies, academic organizations, pharmaceutical and device companies, and non-profit organizations will all find this book to be an essential resource as they examine their opportunities.

Despite enormous advances made in the development of external effector prosthetics over the last quarter century, significant questions remain, especially those concerning signal degradation that occurs with chronically implanted neuroelectrodes. Offering contributions from pioneering researchers in neuroprosthetics and tissue repair, Indwel