Spectroscopic detection of traumatic brain injury severity and biochemistry from the retina.

Carl Banbury,Iain Styles,Antonio Belli,Neil Eisenstein,Pola Goldberg Oppenheimer,Ann Logan,Gloria Vegliante,Elisa R Zanier

doi:10.1364/boe.399473

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major burden on healthcare services worldwide, where scientific and clinical innovation is needed to provide better understanding of biochemical damage to improve both pre-hospital assessment and intensive care monitoring. Here, we present an unconventional concept of using Raman spectroscopy to measure the biochemical response to the retina in an ex-vivo murine model of TBI. Through comparison to spectra from the brain and retina following injury, we elicit subtle spectral changes through the use of multivariate analysis, linked to a decrease in cardiolipin and indicating metabolic disruption. The ability to classify injury severity via spectra of the retina is demonstrated for severe TBI (82.0 %), moderate TBI (75.1 %) and sham groups (69.4 %). By showing that optical spectroscopy can be used to explore the eye as the window to the brain, we lay the groundwork for further exploitation of Raman spectroscopy for indirect, non-invasive assessment of brain chemistry.

Highlights

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), resulting from sudden impact such as assault, sporting injuries or road traffic accidents is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting an estimated 69 million individuals worldwide each year [1]
Our results show that spectra from the eye can distinguish moderate TBI and severe TBI from a sham group, and show this to be as a result of similar chemical changes to those seen at the point of injury on the brain
We have shown that Raman spectroscopy can be used to effectively and accurately identify TBI from tissue samples of the retina, coupled to chemical changes from a cortical impact to the brain

Summary

Introduction

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), resulting from sudden impact such as assault, sporting injuries or road traffic accidents is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting an estimated 69 million individuals worldwide each year [1]. The GCS defines arbitrary boundaries for injury severity grouped as mild, moderate and severe [3]. Whilst this has real clinical value, minimal mechanistic insight is provided into the pathobiology of damage evolution after injury. Novel technologies which can be applied quickly and non-invasively at the point of care (PoC) for interfacing with the brain and define the chemical signatures of TBI pathobiology are needed. A non-invasive method that can detect and quantify TBI would provide a more accurate, objective and timely approach to diagnosis, but may help expand our understanding of injury evolution and enable personalized intervention approaches

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Conclusion