See BI Series: Sleep Disruption, TBI, and Long-Term Effects with Olga (Niki) Kokiko Cochran, Ph. D., The Ohio State University’s CBI Program

Have you ever wondered what the long term effects of your brain injury will be?  We know that brain injury is a risk factor to developing types of dementia like Alzheimer’s.  BUT not all who have brain injury get dementia.  Today in our See BI segment, we are joined by The Ohio State University’s CBI researcher Olga (Niki) Kokiko Cochran to discuss TBI + what = Alzheimer’s.  Could sleep disruption in TBI have chronic effects that lead to long term neurodegenerative consequences? Listen to learn more about the emerging research on this topic.  We are super excited to announce our series: SEE BI! in partnership with The Ohio State’s CBI Program.  The Ohio State Chronic Brain Injury program (CBI) works on improving our understanding, detection, and treatment of brain injuries through research and community partnership.  Over the next few months, we’ll be chatting with brain injury researchers about their work and findings in the brain injury field. We are honored to be joining with them to bring you this educational series!!! Covered in this episode:Chronic outcomes after brain injuryHow does the experience of traumatic injury set the stage for neurodegenerative disease?If you experience traumatic brain injury your risk of developing dementia or  Alzheimer’s is higher BUT traumatic brain injury doesn’t cause brain injuryIn Nikki’s lab they wonder, Brain injury + what= Alzheimer’sMouse models used for her researchModels used mimic different types traumatic brain injuryTrauma is induced on mouse brains several different ways which allows researchers to study and exploreThey need to carefully select which type of mouse model to use to most closely mimic the population they hope to studyNiki’s ResearchNiki’s initial research focused on giving mice who have a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease a traumatic brain injury.  Her hypothesis was that brain injured mice would have a worse pathology (worse Alzheimer’s).  This was not true at all.  The brain injured mice did not do worse and in some cases did better.What they did see was that the inflammatory response to traumatic brain injury was different in mice genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's. That suggested that the presence of pathological proteins that predispose you to Alzheimer’s (which causes inflammation) was changing the inflammatory response from the traumatic brain injury.  This got Niki thinking about brain injury + what= Alzheimer’sNiki started thinking about common symptoms seen in TBI and Alzheimer’s--sleep disruption is present in both.  Could sleep disruption be the stressor that predisposes brain injured people to Alzheimer’s?  Brain injury alone can cause sleep disruption.  Then you have other life stressors (positive or negative) that disrupt sleep.  How does this combination impact your brain function?Sleep disruption is a common symptom of any type of stress. In Niki’s lab, they look at how sleep disruption, which is a common physiological consequence to stress, complicates recovery after brain injury.To research the connections, the researchers disrupt the brain injured mice’s sleep.  Their models mimic humans who have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.  The mice are only disrupted for four hours at a time.  After the 4 hours, they are no longer disrupted and can sleep as much as they need to.  They are not sleep deprived, only disrupted.They study...