This just in about a possible new treatment for traumatic brain injury(TBI). This is only research at this point but it looks promising. The treatment uses hyperbaric chamber treatments.

1st successful treatment for chronic TBI
New Orleans, LA ¨C A research team led by Dr. Paul Harch, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans and Director of the LSU Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship Program, has published findings that show hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) improved spatial learning and memory in a model of chronic traumatic brain injury. HBOT is the use of greater than atmospheric pressure oxygen as a pharmacologic treatment of basic disease processes/states and their diseases. The paper is reported in the October 12, 2007 issue of Brain Research. (Paper available upon request.)

The research team adapted a well-known acute animal model of focal traumatic brain injury to chronic brain injury to evaluate the ability of low-pressure hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to improve behavioral and neurobiological outcomes. The 64 rat subjects were divided into three groups¨C an untreated control group (22), an HBOT group treated with a human protocol (19), and a group treated with sham hyperbaric pressurization (23). The subjects were tested pre and then 31-33 days post HBOT using the Morris Water Task ( MWT), a behavioral test which measures learning and memory. The HBOT group received low pressure twice daily therapy, and the sham-treated normobaric air group the identical schedule of air treatments using a sham hyperbaric pressurization. All groups were subsequently retested in the MWT. Post experiment, blood pressure density was measured in the brain and was correlated with MWT performance. HBOT caused an increase in vascular density in the injured hippoca mpus (p