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Victims of stroke, spinal cord injury or acute trauma to the brain often experience rapid deterioration of everyday functions, a signal of the extent of the damage. But scientists think molecular messengers inside the body can serve as an even earlier barometer of the severity of these injuries.

University of Florida neuroscientists have developed a test that looks for damaged brain cells in the blood. Doctors say a specific protein that signals the presence of these cells is detectable in the bloodstream immediately after neurological or spinal cord injury, before MRIs and CT scans can be ordered. Scientists say the simple “biomarker” blood test could one day be used in the E-R, on the battlefield or in the soccer stadium, places where large diagnostic equipment can’t go…and when the need for speed is essential.

Dr. Gerry Shaw / UF neuroscientist

“Biomarkers can give you information very rapidly and conveniently about whether a particular disease process or damage process is occurring and also give you some information about the levels of injury or the seriousness of the disease state.”

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Scientists think early biomarker diagnosis could help doctors and patients launch an earlier battle against neurological injury and disease…before secondary, long-term injury sets in.

Dr. Gerry Shaw / UF neuroscientist

“Drug companies are looking at agents which will reduce the level of this secondary injury, and we seem to have a very simple, reliable test for this that is not going to cost very much to run and we think is going to provide very useful information.”

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Experts are also studying the blood test’s potential for diagnosing early stages of Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease…two neurodegenerative diseases whose initial onset isn’t evident until damage is already done.

At the University of Florida Health Science Center, I’m Mike Garrison