Biomarkers in traumatic brain injury (TBI): a review.

Biomarkers can be broadly defined as qualitative or quantitative measurements that convey information on the physiopathological state of a subject at a certain time point or disease state. Biomarkers can indicate health, pathology, or response to treatment, including unwanted side effects. When used as outcomes in clinical trials, biomarkers act as surrogates or substitutes for clinically meaningful endpoints.

Improving the clinical management of traumatic brain injury through the pharmacokinetic modeling of peripheral blood biomarkers.

Background: Blood biomarkers of neurovascular damage are used clinically to diagnose the presence severity or absence of neurological diseases, but data interpretation is confounded by a limited understanding of their dependence on variables other than the disease condition itself. These include half-life in blood, molecular weight, and marker-specific biophysical properties, as well as the effects of glomerular filtration, age, gender, and ethnicity. To study these factors, and to provide a method for markers' analyses, we developed a kinetic model that allows the integrated interpretation of these properties.

Cerebral Waste Accumulation and Glymphatic Clearance as Mechanisms of Human Neurological Diseases.

The brain is a complex system that requires continual regulation of parenchymal pressure, osmolarity, and waste removal for optimal function; despite this, human brain lacks any obvious extension of lymphatic circulation for moderating fluid and waste regulation. We recapitulate herein a recent analysis of proteinaceous waste deposition in the human brain, its observed route of clearance, and the implications of abnormal accumulation along this clearance pathway as a potential mechanism of neurological diseases. This study uncovered an analogous staining pattern of cerebral phosphorylated tau in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).