Each year nearly 70 million people will suffer a serious and sometimes fatal traumatic brain injury (TBI). Most TBI survivors have long-term cognitive deficits, and better treatments are needed to improve their recovery.

In a study involving a rodent model of TBI that published online on April 9 in Cerebral Cortex Communications, Emad Eskandar, M.D., M.B.A., and colleagues showed that deep-brain stimulation (DBS) of specific brain regions improved learning and stimulated the growth of brain neurons in the rodents. Additional research by the authors—involving non-human primates and a pilot study involving humans—adds to the evidence that DBS can be helpful following TBI, and a clinical trial is being planned.

Dr. Eskandar is chair of neurological surgery at Einstein and Montefiore and a professor in the Leo M. Davidoff Department of Neurological Surgery, of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at Einstein. He also holds the Jeffrey P. Bergstein Chair and the David B. Keidan Chair in Neurological Surgery.