Rest is NOT good for a brain injury, study finds

Rest may NOT be good for a brain injury: Unprecedented study finds we recover faster and better if we get straight back to work

• Researchers at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute performed tests on mice who had suffered brain injuries, like strokes
• The mice could not perform tasks within the first 24 hours of injury
• But after that, those who got back to activities saw a faster recovery than those who rested for three days
• The researchers believe stimulating various parts of the brain sped up recovery of the injured part 

Rest is not the best way to recover from a brain injury, a new study declares.

In fact, neurologists at Columbia University show, getting back to work and daily life is more effective for helping your brain to recuperate. 

Studying mice, they found those who returned to their normal activities recovered faster and more fully than those who took time off because they were being ‘re-engaged immediately’. 

The lead authors say the findings, which contradict everything we think we know about brain recovery, could pave the way to rehab treatment methods that involve stimulating the brain, rather than soothing it.   

The Columbia University authors say the findings, which contradict everything we know about brain recovery, could pave the way to treatments that stimulate the brain, rather than soothing it. Pictured: the barrel cortex, which is key to sensory responses and is often harmed in brain injuries. This study found, for the first time, that other parts of the brain can do its job after a brain injury – and, in doing so, they help the barrel cortex to recover faster

‘Lengthy rest periods are supposed to be key to the brain’s healthy recovery, but our study in mice demonstrates that re-engaging the brain immediately after injury can actually be more helpful than resting it – an observation that was completely unexpected,’ senior author Dr Randy Bruno, a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, said.

‘While these findings underscore the brain’s complexity, the nature of which we are only beginning to tease apart, they also provide a new avenue of research into more effective rehabilitation efforts for serious brain injuries.’

Dr Bruno cautioned the research on rodents cannot be directly applied to humans but hoped the findings will be further explored by neurologists looking to improve recovery times for their patients.

He added: ‘We tend to immobilize people when they’ve suffered a stroke; the recovery of seemingly simple tasks – walking, grasping – can be a long road.

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‘Our findings suggest that maybe, in some cases, patients could be reintroduced to these activities much earlier in order to speed recovery.’

The study marks an important step in the research team’s multi-year effort to unravel the workings of the brain’s cerebral cortex.

It is the largest region of the mammalian brain and plays a key role in many functions, from sight and smell to movement and memory.

For the study, researchers focused on a part of the animals’ cerebral cortex called the barrel cortex, which is thought to be critical for sensing and analyzing signals during whisking.

First author Dr Y. Kate Hong, a postdoctoral associate in the Bruno lab explained: ‘Mice use whiskers to sense their surroundings the way we use our fingers.’

The researchers placed mice in a dark box and trained them to search for a nearby object with their whiskers.

When the mice detected the object, they pulled a lever with their paw to dispense water as a reward.

Conventional wisdom argued that this kind of detection task depends almost entirely on a functioning sensory cortex – in this case, the barrel cortex.

To confirm this was true, the researchers used laser light to temporarily turn off barrel cortex cells, a popular technique known as optogenetics.

Optogenetics is a biological technique that involves the use of light to control cells in living tissue, typically neurons.

The manipulations are not unlike what happens in the brain of a person having a stroke.

As expected, animals had difficulty whisking while the cells were turned off.

And when the team then permanently removed their barrel cortex, the animals could not perform the task the next day.

But on day two, the animals’ performance suddenly recovered to original levels.

Dr Hong said: ‘This came as a huge surprise, since it suggested that tactile sensation, such as whisker-based touch, may not completely rely on the cortex.

‘These findings challenge the commonly held, cortex-centric view of how the brain drives touch perception.’

The researchers suspect that other, more primitive brain regions may be involved to a greater degree than previously known – a hypothesis the team is currently investigating.

Dr Hong said: ‘Rather than being confined to one particular brain region, sensory information is distributed across many areas.

‘This redundancy allows the brain to solve problems in more than one way – and can serve to protect the brain in case of injury.’

To understand whether it was rest or activity that helped the brain recovery, the researchers let the mice rest for three days before re-exposing them to the task.

This time, the mice showed incomplete rehabilitation.

While they did eventually regain some sensation, they recovered more slowly than the first set of mice.

The key to a speedy recovery appeared to lie in re-engaging with the task early – not the passage of time.

The authors believe the reason the mice perform so badly in the first 24 hours may be down to the disturbance the brain has experienced.

Dr Bruno said: ‘The cortex connects to almost every other structure in the brain, so manipulating it may temporarily disrupt connected structures – in essence shocking those areas that would normally enable a behavior.

‘Perhaps this sudden and brief loss in sensation is due to that initial disruption to the animals’ abilities – rather than being due to the loss of any information stored in the barrel cortex itself.’

The study was published in the journal Nature.

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