Essay example --

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is one of the most common diseases in the world with more than 1.7 million Americans suffering from one each year, making it the most frequently occurring brain disorder today (1 mond paper). mTBI is defined as a brief change in mental status or consciousness due to a blow or jolt to the head (project) and can cause a wide range of symptoms, ranging from short to long term and those symptoms affecting cognition, emotion, sleep, and the physical well-being of the person with a TBI. Neuroplasticity involves changes in neural pathways and synapses that make up for changes in behavior, the environment, and resulting body injury. It can occur on many levels ranging from small scale effects, like cellular changes, to grand scale effects, like cortical remapping. (Wiki?) A consequence of this effect is that brain activity associated with a specific function can move to a different area of the brain to make up for the deficiency in a particular function. This process is thought to occur normally throughout the brain and recently, it has been thought to occur in response to brain injury as well. Researchers are interested in the differential involvement of brain regions and the alteration of cortical networks due to these injuries (slob paper). Due to the inability to create new neurons in the brain, researchers have proposed a hypothesis that synaptic networks re-organize based on the task and previous experience to meet task demands. This paper explores the hypothesi s that persons with TBI recruit additional cerebral resources, the process of cortical rearrangement, to meet demands placed on the brain. The original overview of this hypothesis was that cortical changes ... ...with larger sample sizes so that sample subtypes can differ. By examining different subtypes, from injury severity to the magnitude of behavioral improvement (kaka), better more accurate results can be obtained while helping to validate the cortical rearrangement hypothesis. Other longitudinal studies should be done to examine the validity of biomarkers on cortical rearrangement as determining if these biomarkers are effect tools for treating TBI is also crucial for future research. Biomarker studies should also be completed with a greater number and range of subjects along analysis by a more advanced statistical software (mond). The cortical hypothesis has very important implications for future research. With further supporting research, this idea could change the way that traumatic brain injuries and maybe even neurodegenerative disease are examined and treated.