The Vancouver Sun has this information regarding the previous press release.  A lot of the information is not “ground breaking” per se, rather just a confirmation of what most have been saying for a very long time;

Although symptoms of a concussion may not be immediate, researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto have been able to show in rats that the affected portions of the brain continue to worsen as time passes during a “vulnerability phase.”

“We can see the actual neurons deteriorating for days and days afterwards,” Dr. Andrew Baker, the study’s head researcher said Wednesday. “It’s an ongoing problem and opens up the possibility that doctors can jump in there to stop it. This first step is to show we can show that it takes several days for the effects of a concussion to be visible.”

The “vulnerability phase” may just be the period during which the concussion has not recovered; if you remember back to our example of a concussion via a snow globe, the brain would be vulnerable during the time the flakes were excited.  As the brain has the “cascade” of events including the decrease in blood flow to the brain then the neurons would deteriorate due to lack of nutrients.  The physical effects of a concussion through imaging is very important, however if it takes “several days” to do this then what can we do in the meantime?

In a finding that may be more important to the military than sports was this; Continue reading →