A team at Manchester Royal Infirmary is cautiously optimistic about the prospects of using a new imaging method to learn more about what happens to the brain when damaged in accidents or by disease.

In the UK there are hundreds of people in a 'minimally conscious' state and others who exist in a persistent vegetative state. There are also around 135,000 people admitted to UK hospitals annually due to brain injury, and it is acknowledged that we need to know more about what happens to the brain to be able to help them.

Functional Electrical Impedance Tomography by Evoked Response (FEITER) is a new imaging method that is smaller than current MRI scanners, making it easily portable and available for use in operating theatres.

Electrodes are placed on the head of the patient, and low electrical currents are sent through the skull. These are interrupted by brain tissue and electrical signals.  

A Manchester University research project has tested the brains of those who lose consciousness when anaesthetic is administered within a hospital context, and was surprised to find that different parts of the brain appear to talk to each other.

The findings seem to support theories previously expressed by Professor Susan Greenfield, of Oxford University, who explained unconsciousness as a state that happens when different areas of the brain inhibit each other as the brain shuts down.

The hope is that if a patient who loses consciousness can be monitored in this way, with the brain reacting in the way seen by the Manchester University researchers, a technique can be used to study what happens to an unconscious brain, as well as being used to monitor the brains of those with acquired brain injury.

Every year an estimated one million people attend hospital in the UK following head injuries. Of those, 135,000 are admitted with brain injuries, whether the result of a road traffic accident, an accident at work, a criminal assault or a fall, or a brain injury acquired through a disease such as meningitis or a brain tumour.

The problems experienced vary considerably, but if by imaging and research, we can understand more about how brains have been damaged, this may help in treatment and rehabilitation.

Whilst it is early days for the team in Manchester, similar techniques to FEITER imaging have been used by other researches to detect signs of awareness in patients thought to have been in a vegetative state. The new imaging methods are important tools in helping us to begin to understand what is happening in the brain, giving us the basis for working on some solutions.

Until medical research has been developed further, which could still take years, there are many ways in which those who suffered a brain injury can be assisted to regain a quality of life which, without rehabilitation and targeted professional support for the head injury sufferer and their carers and families, would not be achieved.

Access Legal from Shoosmiths works very closely with traumatic brain injury teams in hospitals, specialists head injury units, charities such as Headway, case managers and support workers to source rehabilitation inside and outside the NHS.

Within a compensation claim, payments on account can also be sought to facilitate effective rehabilitation.

For more details, please contact a member of our serious injury team.

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