Grant: Catalyst Grant: NWHRI: Innovation Fund - Biomedical Discovery Grants

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health concern worldwide that predominantly affects women. During COVID-19, this problem has only escalated. Of the many challenges faced by IPV survivors, one that is remarkably understudied is IPV-related brain injury. This is of paramount importance because initial studies estimate that >90% of IPV survivors report symptoms consistent with brain injury. Unfortunately, brain injury is rarely screened for in IPV patients and is not accounted for in clinical care. The most common form of brain injury in the general public, as well as in IPV, is mild traumatic brain injury (i.e., concussion). However, brain injury in IPV is unique because the concussion often occurs in combination with nonfatal strangulation (i.e., an ischemic/hypoxic brain insult) and under extreme stress. This differs from the mechanism of injury that occurs in sports and military concussion which are the topics that research has focused on. Furthermore, most previous concussion studies involve men as participants and limited studies have been done in women despite evidence that sex and gender differences may exist in the response to brain injury. It is also important to note that the detection of brain injury currently relies on self-reported symptoms that are non-specific and can be clinically confused with other conditions or emotional disturbances, and there is a major need to develop objective methods to detect brain injury. Overall, there are major knowledge gaps regarding our ability to reliably detect brain injury in IPV patients. Therefore, the objective of this proposal is to identify reliable blood tests that can assist in diagnosing brain injury in this underserved population. We will do this by establishing a multi-site study across British Columbia and applying cutting-edge blood biomarker technologies that can be applied in the clinic to improve the care if IPV patients in the foreseeable future.