Study: Brain implants helped 5 after traumatic injuries

Traumatic brain injuries have left more than 5 million Americans permanently disabled. They have trouble focusing on even simple tasks and often have to quit jobs or drop out of school.

A study published Monday has offered them a glimpse of hope.

Five people with moderate-to-severe brain injuries had electrodes implanted in their heads.

As the electrodes stimulated their brains, their performance on cognitive tests improved.

If the results hold up in larger clinical trials, the implants could become the first effective therapy for chronic brain injuries, researchers said.

“This is the first evidence that you can move the dial for this problem,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who led the study.

Schiff and his colleagues designed the trial based on years of research on the structure of the brain. Those studies suggested our ability to focus on tasks depends on a network of brain regions that are linked to one another by long branches of neurons.

The regions send signals to one another, creating a feedback loop that keeps the whole network active.

Sudden jostling of the brain, in a car crash or a fall, for example, can break some of the long-distance connections in the network and lead people to fall into a coma, Schiff and his colleagues have hypothesized.

During recovery, the network may be able to power itself back up. But if the brain is severely damaged, it may not fully rebound.

Schiff and his colleagues pinpointed a structure deep inside the brain as a crucial hub in the network.

Known as the central lateral nucleus, it is a thin sheet of neurons about the size and shape of an almond shell.

The studies raise the possibility stimulating the central lateral nuclei might help people with traumatic brain injuries regain their focus and attention.