Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries"

Infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) requiring surgery frequently have brain injury seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This occurs in approximately 40% of these newborns, and even though these are full-term infants, the injury seen closely resembles the same form of brain injury that can be seen in premature babies. Much like premature newborns, infants with CHD also have long-term neurodevelopmental problems (in over 50%). The investigators do not know why infants with CHD get this specific form of brain injury. One risk factor is felt to be the inflammation that occurs in response to heart-lung bypass (cardiopulmonary bypass, or CPB), a necessary feature of open-heart surgery. Newborns have a stronger inflammatory reaction to CPB than older children or adults. The investigators do know from animal experiments and other human data that inflammation can be harmful to the developing brain. The investigators hypothesize that children with CHD requiring surgery as a newborn have brain injury due to toxicity from the inflammatory response. The investigators will test this by enrolling newborns undergoing heart surgery to measure markers of inflammation, measure brain injury by MRI, and then test their developmental outcome at 1 and 2 years of age. An association between inflammation and injury might impact what medicines are chosen to protect the brain in future studies, even in other populations such as preterm infants.

The investigators propose to compare the proteomic analysis of umbilical venous blood from neonates with brain injury to gestational age matched noninjured controls. After delivery an umbilical arterial gas and a 10 ml umbilical venous sample are obtained, then the remainder of the cord blood is discarded. The investigators plan to use this cord blood that would otherwise be discarded to perform our proteomic analysis. The investigators will use up to 20 ml of cord blood per delivery. This will be a 5 year study during which time the investigators hope to analyze 450 infants at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Bayview Medical Center. The investigators will obtain an umbilical venous sample from infants born at < 34 weeks gestation. For infants born at > 34 weeks the investigators will obtain an umbilical venous sample for any infant suspected to be at risk for neurologic injury by having a diagnosis of chorioamnionitis during labor, nonreassuring fetal heart rate tracing at the time of delivery, or a 5 minute Apgar < 7. For the infants born at < 34 weeks the brain injured infants will be compared to gestational age matched controls without brain injury. For the infants born at > 34 weeks, each infant later confirmed to have neurologic morbidity will be compared to a gestational age matched noninjured control. The investigators hope to use proteomic analysis to determine if there are measurable differences in protein expression between the 2 groups.

Genetic differences in response to brain injury may reasonably be expected to play a role in the initial consequences of traumatic brain injury and in the rate of recovery from such injury.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the cognitive processes of participants with schizophrenia, participants with nervous system and mental disorders, and healthy volunteers. Participants in this study will undergo cognitive tests of attention, memory, attention. Participants with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) will be compared with participants with schizophrenia. A group of healthy adults and children will undergo cognitive tests to further delineate the degree of impairment in schizophrenia and neurological disorder participants.

Demonstrating that diagnostics of the state of consciousness and cognitive functions of patients with consciousness disorders performed using C-Eye X (based on eye-tracking technology) allows a more objective assessment of state of patients who were wrongly diagnosed based on popular methods using in a clinical practice (like behavioural scales on paper forms).

DELPhI software developed for the analysis of EEG recordings in response to magnetic stimulation in relation to clinical data.

The aim of the study is to investigate whether dexmedetomidine could suppress catecholamine release into peripheral blood to prevent PSH attacks and to achieve neuroprotection.

The incidence of aggression and violent behavior is usually reported to be high after acquired brain injury, around 54%. Behaviors with verbal agression and, less frequently, physical agressions, are described. These behaviors may be linked to the dysfunction of the frontal lobes responsible for executive functions and complex social interactions, or to the dysfunction of the temporal structures that may also be responsible for increased aggression. It is interesting to note that very few scales or specific questionnaires evaluate the factors and co-variables that could lead to aggressive behavior after an acquired brain injury. Such questionnaires are very rare, and none have been validated in French. The objective of this study is to develop a questionnaire in French that aims to assess anger, hostility and aggression after acquired brain injury. The psychometric qualities of this questionnaire will be evaluated using the Rasch probabilistic model. The development of such a tool will be of major interest for clinical practice and future clinical research.

A prospective, non-randomized trial for the extension and replication of the development database of brain electrical activity recordings and clinical information collected from patients who present to the ED following closed head injury.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a quantitative relationship between brain processes seen by a MRI and visual deficits caused by mild to moderate traumatic brain injuries (mTBI).