Clinically Relevant Outcome Measures for Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Studies

There is an unquestionably large translational gap between experimental and clinical traumatic brain injury (TBI) studies. The “lost in translation” factor is reflected in the zero success rates of clinical trials for TBI forcing pharmaceuticals to eliminate or drastically reduce their R&D budgets for developing pharmacotherapies for TBI. Of the many factors contributing to the current translational block is the difference in outcome measures used in experimental versus clinical TBI studies, essentially forcing scientists to compare “apples to oranges.” Here, we describe selected clinically relevant outcome measures scientists in experimental TBI can and should employ. We specifically focus on neurobehavioral, imaging and biochemical outcome measures which all have clinical equivalents. Our goal is to provide scientists with detailed descriptions of methodologies hoping that increasing numbers of experimental TBI studies will use them resulting in narrowing the translational gap between experimental and clinical TBI studies.