A Review of Chronic Pain and Cognitive, Mood, and Motor Dysfunction Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Complex, Comorbid, and/or Overlapping Conditions?
1
Department of Neurosurgery, University of Texas Health San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, MC 7843, San Antonio, TX 78229-3900, USA
2
Department of Physical Therapy, University of Texas Health San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Brain Sci. 2017, 7(12), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci7120160
Received: 6 October 2017 / Revised: 25 November 2017 / Accepted: 2 December 2017 / Published: 6 December 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI): Medical Treatments and Complications)
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is commonly encountered in clinical practice. While the cognitive ramifications of mTBI are frequently described in the literature, the impact of mTBI on emotional, sensory, and motor function is not as commonly discussed. Chronic pain is a phenomenon more prevalent among patients with mTBI compared to those with moderate or severe traumatic brain injury. Chronic pain can become a primary disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) expressed as widespread pain, and cognitive, mood, and movement dysfunction. Shared mechanisms across chronic pain conditions can account for how pain is generated and maintained in the CNS, irrespective of the underlying structural pathology. Herein, we review the impact of mTBI on cognitive, emotional, sensory, and motor domains, and the role of pain as an important confounding variable in patient recovery and dysfunction following mTBI.
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Keywords:
traumatic brain injury; concussion; pain; cognition; mood; movement
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Grandhi, R.; Tavakoli, S.; Ortega, C.; Simmonds, M.J. A Review of Chronic Pain and Cognitive, Mood, and Motor Dysfunction Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Complex, Comorbid, and/or Overlapping Conditions? Brain Sci. 2017, 7, 160.
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