Teenagers who have experienced a traumatic brain injury are much more likely to engage in a wide range of risky behaviors, Canadian researchers report.
Both boys and girls were more likely to smoke, use drugs, drink alcohol and get poor grades after they endured a blow to the head that knocked them out for longer than five minutes or landed them in the hospital for a day or more, the study found.
"This is a wake-up call. Concussions are brain injuries, and we need parents and physicians to become more vigilant," said lead author Gabriela Ilie, a postdoctoral fellow at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. "Our brains define who we are, and a lot of our behaviors and thoughts and emotions depend on our brain circuitry operating properly."
However, the study only showed an association between traumatic brain injury and risky behaviors, not a cause-and-effect relationship, noted Dr. Anthony Alessi, a neurologist and concussion expert in Norwich, Conn.
[For more of this story, written by Dennis Thompson, go to http://consumer.healthday.com/...behavior-692229.html]
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