Neuronal and Glial Biomarkers Research for Traumatic Brain Injury

The potential of early neurological inaccurate assessment of severity in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been highlighted; in some cases, for example, the severity of the injury is overestimated or underestimated. These findings have led to the search of biomarkers associated with early brain injury. Research in this field has exponentially increased over the past 20 years, with most publications on the subject in the last 10 years, whose results range from promising findings to other sometimes inconclusive one. An ideal biomarker should be able to demonstrate high sensitivity and specificity for brain injury, among other aspects. Literature has shown that there is not a single biomarker that predicts the patient’s clinical decline with high sensitivity and specificity. Instead, it is required to use a panel of markers that reflect different aspects of head trauma. This chapter gives a review of the most promising biomarkers studied as predictors of severity of TBI, with a special focus on their nature, location, basal concentrations, and methods by which they can be quantified in blood samples.