Publications by authors named "Eamonn Kennedy"

Objective: To investigate phenotypes of comorbidity before and after an epilepsy diagnosis in a national cohort of post-9/11 Service Members and Veterans and explore phenotypic associations with mortality.

Methods: Among a longitudinal cohort of Service Members and Veterans receiving care in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) from 2002 to 2018, annual diagnoses for 26 conditions associated with epilepsy were collected over 5 years, ranging from 2 years prior to 2 years after the year of first epilepsy diagnosis. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify probabilistic comorbidity phenotypes with distinct health trajectories.

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  • Chronic headaches are a common issue for military Veterans after experiencing traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and their treatment is often complicated and costly.
  • A study of 141,125 Veterans post-9/11 revealed that those with specific types of headache combinations, especially post-TBI migraines, faced significantly higher healthcare costs.
  • There's a need for further research to understand if the high costs correlate with better treatment results or indicate persistent, harder-to-treat headaches.
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  • Neuroscience researchers are leveraging Big Data to improve the reliability of findings by increasing sample sizes and addressing replication issues.
  • A study analyzed data from 53 studies with over 10,500 participants to connect scores from various auditory verbal learning tasks (AVLTs) while controlling for site-related effects.
  • The research successfully reduced score variance by 37% and developed an online tool to help researchers and clinicians convert memory scores across different tests, highlighting the benefit of global data harmonization in behavioral sciences.
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Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with a variety of adverse long-term outcomes and increases sympathetic nervous system activation, which could increase the risk of arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter (AF/AFL).

Objective: We examined episodes of TBI and subsequent AF/AFL in a large cohort of post-9/11 servicemembers and veterans.

Methods: The variable of interest was TBI, stratified by severity (mild, moderate/severe, and penetrating).

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  • The study investigates the relationship between the timing of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and mortality in veterans with epilepsy, finding that TBI increases mortality risk, especially when it occurs shortly after epilepsy onset.
  • Among almost 1 million veterans, those with epilepsy had a significantly higher mortality rate compared to controls, with the most severe risk observed in those with TBI within 6 months of epilepsy diagnosis.
  • Results indicate that the timing of TBI in relation to epilepsy is crucial, highlighting a need for targeted care for veterans experiencing these conditions.
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Deficits in memory performance have been linked to a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions. While many studies have assessed the memory impacts of individual conditions, this study considers a broader perspective by evaluating how memory recall is differentially associated with nine common neuropsychiatric conditions using data drawn from 55 international studies, aggregating 15,883 unique participants aged 15-90. The effects of dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury, stroke, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder on immediate, short-, and long-delay verbal learning and memory (VLM) scores were estimated relative to matched healthy individuals.

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U.S. Service members and Veterans (SM/V) experience elevated rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI), chronic pain, and other non-pain symptoms.

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Background And Objectives: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a concern for US service members and veterans (SMV), leading to heterogeneous psychological and cognitive outcomes. We sought to identify neuropsychological profiles of mild TBI (mTBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among the largest SMV sample to date.

Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional baseline data from SMV with prior combat deployments enrolled in the ongoing Long-term Impact of Military-relevant Brain Injury Consortium-Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium prospective longitudinal study.

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Introduction: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) encompasses a clinically and pathologically diverse group of neurodegenerative disorders, yet little work has quantified the unique phenotypic clinical presentations of FTD among post-9/11 era veterans. To identify phenotypes of FTD using natural language processing (NLP) aided medical chart reviews of post-9/11 era U.S.

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  • MRI is a key tool in researching diagnostic and prognostic markers after traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly to understand mild TBI (mTBI), but findings are often inconsistent, highlighting the need for further study.
  • The study analyzed MRI data from 976 military veterans and service members to explore the links between imaging outcomes and clinical features of mTBI, using regression models to account for factors like age and sex.
  • Results indicated that while no major differences were found between those with and without mTBI history, blast-related mTBI showed significant brain volume reductions in certain areas, and multiple mTBIs correlated with specific MRI findings.
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Background: While emerging evidence supports a link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and progressive cognitive dysfunction in Veterans, there is insufficient information on the impact of cannabis use disorder (CUD) on long-term cognitive disorders. This study aimed to examine the incidences of cognitive disorders in Veterans with TBI and CUD and to evaluate their relationship.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense administrative data from the Long-term Impact of Military-Relevant Brain Injury Consortium-Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium Phenotype study.

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  • * Analyzing data from 1456 service members, the research finds that those with one or more mild TBIs have significantly higher odds of experiencing moderate to severe depression compared to individuals without such injuries.
  • * The findings indicate that multiple TBIs and injuries sustained in combat-related contexts are linked to greater depressive symptoms, regardless of the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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Background And Objectives: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a well-established epilepsy risk factor and is common among service members. Deployment-related TBI, where combat/blast may be more common, may have different outcomes than nondeployment-related TBI. This work examined associations of all TBI exposures (not just combat), and epilepsy, while adjusting for comorbidities associated with epilepsy, among veterans by deployment status.

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Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the most common form of brain injury. While most individuals recover from mTBI, roughly 20% experience persistent symptoms, potentially including reduced fine motor control. We investigate relationships between regional white matter organization and subcortical volumes associated with performance on the Grooved Pegboard (GPB) test in a large cohort of military Service Members and Veterans (SM&Vs) with and without a history of mTBI(s).

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Objective: The study aimed to examine the association between post-concussive comorbidity burdens [post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and/or headache] and central nervous system (CNS) polypharmacy (five or more concurrent medications) with reported neurobehavioral symptoms and symptom validity screening among post-9/11 veterans with a history of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

Setting: Administrative medical record data from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) were used in the study.

Participants: Post-9/11 veterans with mTBI and at least 2 years of VA care between 2001 and 2019 who had completed the comprehensive traumatic brain injury evaluation (CTBIE) were included in the study.

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Objective: Veterans are at elevated risk of epilepsy due to higher rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, little work has examined the extent to which quality of care is associated with key outcomes for Veterans with epilepsy (VWE). This study aimed to examine the impact of quality of care on three outcomes: patients' knowledge of epilepsy self-care, proactive epilepsy self-management, and satisfaction with care.

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  • Researchers in neuroscience are using Big Data to improve the reliability and replication of cognitive studies, focusing on memory testing.
  • They conducted a mega-analysis with data from 53 studies, involving over 10,500 individuals, employing methods to harmonize data and reduce variability across different sites.
  • Their findings show that large-scale data sharing can enhance the reproducibility of research in behavioral sciences, and they offer a free conversion tool for this purpose.
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  • * Key findings revealed that younger age, substance use disorders, and being male significantly increased the likelihood of legal trouble post-discharge, especially for veterans from lower socioeconomic neighborhoods.
  • * The research highlights the importance of addressing mental health and substance use issues among veterans, as those with multiple disorders faced a tenfold higher risk of legal involvement compared to those without.
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Importance: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) was common among US service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Although there is some evidence to suggest that TBI increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), prior reports were predominantly limited to cerebrovascular outcomes. The potential association of TBI with CVD has not been comprehensively examined in post-9/11-era veterans.

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Background And Objectives: Epilepsy is defined by the occurrence of multiple unprovoked seizures, but quality of life (QOL) in people with epilepsy is determined by multiple factors, in which psychiatric comorbid conditions play a pivotal role. Therefore, understanding the interplay between comorbid conditions and QOL across epilepsy phenotypes is an important step toward improved outcomes. Here, we report the impact of QOL across distinct epilepsy phenotypes in a cohort of post-9/11 veterans with high rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI).

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Objectives: To assess traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related risks factors for early-onset dementia (EOD).

Background: Younger Post-9/11 Veterans may be at elevated risk for EOD due to high rates of TBI in early/mid adulthood. Few studies have explored the longitudinal relationship between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the emergence of EOD subtypes.

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Understanding risk for epilepsy among persons who sustain a mild (mTBI) traumatic brain injury (TBI) is crucial for effective intervention and prevention. However, mTBI is frequently undocumented or poorly documented in health records. Further, health records are non-continuous, such as when persons move through health systems (e.

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Data encoded in molecules offers opportunities for secret messaging and extreme information density. Here, we explore how the same chemical and physical dimensions used to encode molecular information can expose molecular messages to detection and manipulation. To address these vulnerabilities, we write data using an object's pre-existing surface chemistry in ways that are indistinguishable from the original substrate.

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It is widely appreciated that the spectrum of traumatic brain injury (TBI), mild through severe, contains distinct clinical presentations, variably referred to as subtypes, phenotypes, and/or clinical profiles. As part of the Brain Trauma Blueprint TBI State of the Science, we review the current literature on TBI phenotyping with an emphasis on unsupervised methodological approaches, and describe five phenotypes that appear similar across reports. However, we also find the literature contains divergent analysis strategies, inclusion criteria, findings, and use of terms.

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