Event-related-potential (ERP) markers of traumatic brain injury (TBI) severity and cognitive function – Understanding how the brain works and thinks post TBI

One fact is that other injuries often co-occur with traumatic brain Injury (TBI), thus event related potentials (ERPs) elicited using electroencephalography (EEG) machines like NeuralScan by Medeia often reflect the sum of both injuries. The second fact is that cognitive function includes domains from knowledge, attention, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and “computation” to problem solving and decision-making. The third is that cross-border mental or neurocognitive or non-traumatic brain disorders that exhibit similar symptoms post-TBI will exhibit impairments in similar domains. Therefore, what if observing similar a) altered EEG-functional connectivity in post-TBI as in Alzheimer’s, epileptic seizures, schizophrenia, stroke etc or b) altered network geometries in post- TBI as in CNS tumors, depression etc is the status quo? What if the reason we are not able to identify pathognomic ERP-markers of cognitive impairment post-TBI that are highly specific and sensitive is simply because we are not thinking as the brain does? What if trying to validate ERP markers of TBI-severity and cognitive function post-TBI in the same manner one validates a candidate diagnostic test is what’s wrong in the first place? Is it possible that domain- and symptom-based identification, management and treatment of cognitive-impairments or TBI-severity are the way to go?