Juvenile concussion results in accelerated aging:A diffusion MRI investigation

Juvenile mild traumatic brain injury (jmTBI) has the potential to elicit cognitive, adaptive, and socio‐behavioral decrements. Unknown is how early life concussions can lead to enduring effects into late adulthood. Studying jmTBI progression from an early concussive event to long term deficits in adulthood is critical for outcome prediction and the development of appropriate treatments. We hypothesized that a single jmTBI leads to an altered brain maturation, thereby producing temporally evolving microstructural deficits that eventually lead to late‐in‐life cognitive and behavioral deficits.