Salivary Cortisol Dynamics After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
Sophia Musacchio, Madeline D Kallenbach, Daniel L Huber and 6 others
PMID 36696236WHAT IT FOUND
One week after mild traumatic brain injury, patients had higher resting cortisol and a larger stress response to exercise than uninjured controls.
This suggests activity prescriptions should be tailored to individual tolerance rather than following general advice.
Key findings
01Salivary cortisol levels were significantly higher in the mTBI group compared to controls across visits.
02One week post-injury, the mTBI group showed an increase in cortisol after the treadmill test, while the control group showed a decrease.
03The mTBI group had significantly lower tolerance for the treadmill test one week post-injury compared to controls.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was relatively small (37 mTBI, 24 controls), which the authors describe as making the results preliminary. The control group was significantly older, more educated, and had a different racial composition than the mTBI group, although the authors state these factors did not significantly predict the cortisol results. The study compared mTBI patients to uninjured controls, so it is unclear if the cortisol findings are specific to brain injury or would also occur after other types of traumatic injury. Cortisol was sampled only in the afternoon over a two-hour period, which may have made it difficult to detect stressor effects due to natural daily rhythms. The authors note that the increased cortisol reactivity to exercise could have been a spurious finding due to the number of statistical comparisons performed.
Declared interests
The authors have no conflicts of interest with this work.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the higher cortisol levels as a direct cause of poor recovery or a target for treatment. The study is observational and small, and the authors state the findings are preliminary and need replication in larger samples.