The Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet has, after a careful inventory, decided to award Eric Thelin's research group, active at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, SEK 730,000 from a donation bequeathed by Erik Gut.
Eric Thelin's research group at the Division of Neuro , Department of Clinical Neuroscience , is awarded the donation for their projects "Studies on acute traumatic brain injury".
The focus of these projects is to improve the care of patients who have suffered an acute brain injury, and to study how the injury affects them years later.
"We do this through extensive research activities where we study patients with traumatic brain injury, but also try to understand injury mechanisms using animal models. Here, the focus is primarily on understanding why many people with traumatic brain injury later develop neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Something that has been actualized with affected individuals in sports such as ice hockey, American football and boxing", says Eric Thelin. He continues:
"We are also interested in how to better identify individuals with mild traumatic brain injury already in the hospital emergency room. Today, bleeding is found in as few as one in ten brain scans. This results in unnecessary X-rays and costs for the healthcare system. In addition, patients with potentially serious bleeding may have to wait. Therefore, we want to develop a method for emergency physicians to more easily find important bleeds faster by reviewing all patients who sought care in Stockholm for minor brain injury".
Erik Thelin emphasizes that the donation after Etik Gut makes it possible to hire a researcher to work on the projects.
