Fatigue Is Associated With Global and Regional Thalamic Morphometry in Veterans With a History of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
Alexandra L Clark, Scott F Sorg, Kelsey Holiday and 6 others
PMID 29385016WHAT IT FOUND
In Veterans with mild TBI, higher self-reported fatigue was associated with smaller thalamic volume and localized shape reductions in the front and inner upper right thalamus.
The finding links fatigue to brain structure, not to PTSD or depression alone.
Key findings
01Higher fatigue was associated with lower thalamic volume in both hemispheres.
02Higher fatigue was associated with localized reductions in the anterior and dorso-medial right thalamus.
03Neither PTSD nor depressive symptoms were significant predictors of thalamic morphometry in the regression models.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that thalamic changes caused fatigue or that fatigue caused thalamic changes. mTBI diagnosis relied on retrospective self-report, which can be affected by recall bias. The sample was Veterans with mTBI, mostly male, so the results may not apply to civilian TBI, other ages, or other sexes. The study did not include a non-mTBI comparison group, so it cannot say whether these thalamic associations are unique to this population. Fatigue was measured as a total self-report score, and the study did not separate physical and cognitive fatigue components. The left thalamic regional finding was only suggested when the significance threshold was relaxed, so it should be treated as exploratory.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include an author conflicts-of-interest statement. The publication types list NIH extramural and U.S. Government non-PHS research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that thalamic changes caused fatigue. This study measured both at one time and cannot show cause. It also cannot show that treating thalamic changes would reduce fatigue.