[1] Secondary brain injury occurs gradually and may involve an array of cellular processes.
[1] The blood brain barrier and meninges may be damaged in the primary injury, and neurons may die.
[6] It occurs in the hours and days following the primary injury[9][10] and plays a large role in the brain damage and death that results from TBI.
[11] In addition, rather than improving after being hospitalized as most patients with other types of injuries do, about 40% of people with TBI deteriorate.
[3] In addition, alterations in the release of neurotransmitters (the chemicals used by brain cells to communicate) can cause secondary injury.
Excitotoxicity can cause a variety of negative effects, including damage to cells by free radicals, potentially leading to neurodegeneration.
Furthermore, secondary injury presents opportunities for researchers to find drug therapies to limit or prevent the damage.
Since a variety of processes occur in secondary injury, any treatments that are developed to halt or mitigate it will need to address more than one of these mechanisms.