Exploring the cognitive vulnerabilities in traumatic brain injury: A cross-sectional study conducted in an urban south India cohort.

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be primary/secondary injury which may culminate in cognitive impairment. This study aims to study the prevalence and to evaluate the cognition in participants afflicted with mild/moderate TBI.

Methodology: The study considered 1464 participants aged ≥ 45 years from Tata Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA). Among them, 48 participants with TBI and 48 age, gender, education-matched healthy controls were included in the study. Based on duration of lack of consciousness (LOC), participants were screened for mild (≤30 mins) or moderate (>30 mins-24 hrs) TBI. After excluding three participants with missing data for LOC and one participant with severe TBI, we considered 44 participants. Cognition was evaluated using COGNITO (Computerized Assessment of Adult Information Processing) neuropsychological test battery. Generalized Linear Model (GLM) was performed to assess the relationship between TBI and cognition (unadjusted (model 1), adjusted for age, gender, education (model 2) and adjusted for age, gender, education Apolipoprotein E E4 (model 3)).

Results: Prevalence of TBI is 3.3 %. Model 1 revealed that participants with mild/moderate TBI performed poorer in implicit memory task and had lesser reaction time. Adjusted models (Model 2, 3) revealed that TBI participants had lesser reaction time when compared to healthy controls.

Conclusion: TBI did not seem to significantly affect cognitive functioning except implicit memory. Therefore, TBI might act as a risk factor for decline in certain domains of cognition.