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A major international brain autopsy study of women who had experienced intimate partner violence reveals substantial damage in the brain, but no evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the neurodegenerative disease recognized among contact sports athletes who sustain repeated head trauma.
The international collaboration was led by a team from the Brain Injury Research Center of Mount Sinai and the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, alongside researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Pennsylvania as part of the CONNECT-TBI project. Researchers examined the brains of over 80 women with histories of intimate partner violence. The findings of this landmark study are published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica.
The study found that women who had experienced intimate partner violence had substantial vascular and white matter pathology damage in the brain. The women were also found to have substantial medical comorbidities, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. The researchers suggest these findings demonstrate an urgent need to consider the broad scope of pathology that could be influencing intimate partner violence-related brain injury, as well as the medical and psychiatric comorbidities that contribute to brain health during life.
Despite how common intimate partner violence is – the Office of National Statistics report 2.4m adults aged 16 years and over (1.7m women) experienced domestic abuse in the UK in the year ending March 2022 – remarkably little is known about its effects on the brain. Victims of intimate partner violence frequently report traumatic brain injury and, until now, there has been an assumption that repeated head injuries sustained in the context of intimate partner violence are comparable to those sustained by contact sports athletes.
The international collaboration was led by a team from the Brain Injury Research Center of Mount Sinai and the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, alongside researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Pennsylvania as part of the CONNECT-TBI project. Researchers examined the brains of over 80 women with histories of intimate partner violence. The findings of this landmark study are published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica.
The study found that women who had experienced intimate partner violence had substantial vascular and white matter pathology damage in the brain. The women were also found to have substantial medical comorbidities, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. The researchers suggest these findings demonstrate an urgent need to consider the broad scope of pathology that could be influencing intimate partner violence-related brain injury, as well as the medical and psychiatric comorbidities that contribute to brain health during life.
Despite how common intimate partner violence is – the Office of National Statistics report 2.4m adults aged 16 years and over (1.7m women) experienced domestic abuse in the UK in the year ending March 2022 – remarkably little is known about its effects on the brain. Victims of intimate partner violence frequently report traumatic brain injury and, until now, there has been an assumption that repeated head injuries sustained in the context of intimate partner violence are comparable to those sustained by contact sports athletes.
