Metabolome in traumatic brain injury - from biomarkers and pathways to clinical translation (pathTBI)

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common neurological diseases worldwide, affecting all ages. Improved characterization and prognostic models would allow clinicians to make more accurate treatment choices. There has been increasing interest in circulating metabolites as potential biomarkers for TBI stratification. Preliminary data suggest that they associate with severity of TBI and hold promise for the discrimination of patient outcomes. However, little is known about the underlying pathophysiological relevance of metabolic changes as observed in TBI. Furthermore, the dynamic changes of the TBI-associated metabolites in TBI patients are unknown, which limits their clinical utility.

The specific objectives of pathTBI are:

• To utilize the unprecedented highly granular data collection provided by the CENTER-TBI and perform an integrative and comprehensive longitudinal proteomics and metabolomics study in 200 TBI patients.
• To perform deep phenotyping study in a longitudinal cohort of 200 patients with TBI, set up at Örebro University Hospital.
• To develop and apply new tools for discovery and clinical translation in TBI.

pathTBI will (1) define dynamic changes of metabolome in TBI patients, and (2) perform deep metabolic and immune phenotyping in mild TBI patients. The study will deliver novel knowledge about TBI pathophysiology underlying the metabolic changes and provide evidence for diagnostic/prognostic utilization of metabolic biomarkers.