Concussion First Time More Likely to Get Again

Health

Is it true I am more likely to get a concussion after already having 1?

- Asks Bailey from New York

• April 28, 2008

Athletes who play on despite suffering a concussion put themselves at increased risk for a second i. [Credit: Atle Brunvoll]

Despite the former saying encouraging you to hop back on your bike after falling off, it turns out that may exist bad communication, particularly if yous hit your head on the fall.

Later having one concussion you are more probable to have another — some doctors estimate you increase your take a chance upwards to three times. There are two reasons why your risk increases: carelessness and brain chemistry.

The starting time reason is the obvious: Later on you lot hit your caput, y'all will be slower to react. Then if you jump correct back on your bike, you won't have the same reflexes to stop on a dime or swerve at the final minute. Surprisingly, this is actually more common than yous might call up. Devoted football or soccer athletes may render to a game sooner than they should after taking a difficult hit, profoundly increasing their risk of another concussion. Also, after you have a concussion, you're less attentive overall, making tasks like crossing the street that much more dangerous.

The increased susceptibility for a second concussion as well comes downward to brain chemistry. A concussion causes chemical changes in your brain, which leave the encephalon unbalanced and more than prone to damage for up to a twelvemonth, said David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Enquiry Eye at the Academy of California, Los Angeles.

What happens during a concussion, said Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, the president of the Brain Trauma Foundation, is that the pulling and stretching of your encephalon results in tiny tears in the white matter — the tissue connecting the dissimilar brain regions. The result is less considerateness and retentiveness and slower reflexes.

Your brain is contained in fluid in your skull, much similar an ice cube in a glass of water. Moving the glass back and forth causes the ice cube to slosh around in the drinking glass. This is what is happening to your encephalon during a concussion. It'south non the movement itself that causes the concussion, just the force and acceleration of that movement, Hovda said.

"It causes all the cells in the encephalon to fire — like the brain is having a mini-seizure," he added.

When the cells burn during a concussion, they release neurotransmitters. One neurotransmitter, glutamate, causes the cells to release potassium and take up sodium, the crucial chemical processes through which nerves ship electric signals.

When potassium leaves the jail cell, the cell wants to pump information technology back in again. This requires enormous amounts of energy, then immediately after a concussion the brain is metabolically very active, trying to pump the sodium dorsum in. As a issue it burns lots of glucose. In addition, the uptake of sodium prevents the cell from beingness able to admission its energy reserves. This results in what Hovda calls an "energy crisis."

The brain is susceptible in this energy-deprived country because it does not have the energy to restore the sodium/potassium rest if information technology sustains another blow.

Normally, blood menses to the brain would restore the glucose. But a concussion also causes the muscles around the blood vessels to constrict, reducing the amount of blood able to reach the encephalon. As a result, the brain remains in an energy crisis and susceptible to damage.

In sum, suffering a concussion increases your chances for having some other one because of the chemical changes that can get out your brain debilitated for upwards to a year. And then the next time you fall off your bike, recollect twice before hopping back on right abroad.

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Source: https://scienceline.org/2008/04/ask-heger-concussion/

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