Graduate student Austin Gowen’s inquisitive nature and background as a combat sports athlete led him on a path to research and a recent journal publication in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health.
Gowen has been working with Sowmya Yelamanchili, PhD, associate professor in the UNMC Department of Anesthesiology, for the past three years, and his most recent publication explores the effect on brain vulnerability of in-utero and post-natal opioid exposure followed by a mild traumatic brain injury.
Gowen pondered why some people have worsened outcomes after concussions and others recover more quickly. “Some people experience mild concussions and have severe long-term effects,” said Gowen. “I wanted to understand what weaknesses we are not acknowledging that could be creating that predisposition.”
Dr. Yelamanchili’s research interests include opioid exposure in utero, and Gowen said he considered this as a possible environmental element that could lead to brain vulnerability. “How your environment was as a child precipitates a lot of outcomes as you get older,” Gowen said.
One of the unique elements of the study was its concern not just with biomarkers or molecular outcomes but physiological and behavioral outcomes. Gowen said average healthy individuals will typically recover from a brain injury or concussion in as short a time as a few minutes or up to a week, but he discovered during model testing that mice with opioid exposure, followed by a mild brain injury, experienced significant behavioral and motor deficits over a timeline spanning from early childhood through late adolescence.
“Another novel finding was that mitochondria, which impact cognitive function and are inherited from your mother, have significant deficits,” Gowen said. “They respond hyperactively at an early age, but it can’t keep up, like sprinting at the beginning of the race then starting to flag at the end.”
The outcomes of this study will increase health equity through increased awareness of the impacts of opioid exposure from a physician’s standpoint, Gowen said.
“There’s vulnerability in this population. If we want to achieve real health equity, we need to make pediatricians aware that when they look at a patient’s chart, this might be something to consider not just immediately after birth, but throughout childhood development and even into adulthood,” Gowen said.
Gowen expressed his appreciation for the support from Dr. Yelamanchili, Karsten Bartels, PhD, vice chair of research, and department chair Steven Lisco, PhD.
“The concussion and brain injury elements were something that I was interested in but wasn’t funded,” Gowen said. “The results turned out well, indicating a very common injury that these children are prone and very vulnerable to, and it was the support from the department, by letting me nurture this project, that has allowed me to elucidate that connection.”