Concussion & Brain Injury

The DAVID Delight Pro is a portable hand-held device which utilizes a non-invasive, drug-free approach to help relieve concussion symptoms. This approach provides a unique fusion of Audio-Visual Entrainment (AVE) and Cranio-Electro Stimulation (CES)

Using the SMR/Beta AVE session, the DAVID Delight Pro can “jump-start” the brain from a concussion in as little as 15 minutes – where the concussed person feels an increase in mental sharpness, emotional control and improved sleep.

Falls, motor-vehicle accidents and sports injuries, which result in a diffuse axonal injury (DAI), are the most prevalent brain injuries today. However, post-injury inflammation from either actual physical injury to the head or from viral infections cause the brain to hyperpolarize and shut down the loops to the thalamus, called a Thalamo Cortical Disconnect (TCD). Brain regions far outside the site of the injury are affected and these neurons may also be taken off-line. So, when a TCD develops from post-concussion or post-fever-inflammation, a massive signalling loop disconnects in somewhere between the thalamus and the cortex, and while the circuits are usually intact, they are operating offline. Given that the calming alpha brain waves (and also theta and delta waves during sleep) shut down, the emotional result is continuous anxiety and insomnia.

But, the TCD also serves as the “drummer” in the brain keeping everything on track and synchronized. Without this drummer, the brain signals get scattered all over the place and lose all synchronization. In addition to the scrambled timing, the brain loses about 500 billion action potentials/second which causes mental confusion. But a type of glial cell called oligodendrocyte, which myelinated the axons (wires) from the neurons, must “see” action potentials or it doesn’t know where to myelinate. This further loss of myelination further slows down the brain and the ability to think, reason, pay attention, control emotions and solve problems. The loss of delta brain waves produces severe insomnia and with impaired insomnia, the brain loses its ability to clean out the “trash” – protein build-up from daily use. Astrocytes are the cells responsible for taking out the trash, but they can only do so when called upon, and that is done when they sense big delta brain waves during deep (stage 4) sleep. As a result, proteins build up in the brain which eventually leads to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in athletes with reported concussion and Alzheimer’s in others that don’t have a history of concussion.

Concussions seem to play out in four areas:

1) Grey matter injury – these are injuries to neurons, which result in reduced beta and alpha activity.

2) White-matter injury – these are injuries to the axons, or wires, that carry action potentials from the neurons down networks to other neurons for further processing.

3) Combined grey & white matter injuries – these are injuries to both the neurons and axons (therefore networks). Beta and alpha activity are reduced, while theta and delta brain wave activity increases.

4) Thalamocortical Disconnect – this appears to mainly be a post-inflammatory condition in which the neurons and axons don’t show much or even any damage, but they quit signalling to the thalamus. They essentially go offline. The EEG is low-voltage and there is no alpha brain wave activity.

MRIs are typically used to diagnose a concussion. But when a TCD develops from post-concussion or post-fever inflammation and the thalamocortical networks have gone offline, this cannot be seen with an MRI and it appears everything is normal. However, there can be serious impairments in brain function that are clearly obvious on an EEG. Once this TCD type of concussion is understood, its signature on EEG is very obvious.