IMMUNE RESPONSE AT TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURIES IN WORKING-AGE MEN LIVING IN THE NORTH
With the onset of any pathology, including trauma, the body urgently activates adaptation mechanisms. It is known that the principle of immune regulation can be manifested both as a rapid response and as its abrupt inhibition. The good prospects of using the most physiological approach to the study of various pathologies are primarily due to the interconnection and unity of the immune and neuroendocrine systems. Research into compensatory and adaptive physiological processes in the main adaptation systems (immune and neuroendocrine) is of greatest urgency. The incidence of traumatic brain injuries (TBI), according to WHO statistics, is growing on average by 2 % each year, ranging between 50 and70 % of all injuries. This increase is caused by accidents at work and on the road as well as due to the growing proportion of combat injuries. The injured are usually young working-age people, almost a third of whom become disabled. At present, there is no data on the adaptive immunity in people with TBI, the available information being scattered and contradictory. An important aspect from the clinical, forensic, socioeconomic, and legal points of view is the prediction of brain injury outcomes, which is impossible without taking into account adaptive physiological immune responses. We were interested in identifying immune responses in patients with moderate TBI in the course of the first 24 hours from the injury. According to the results, during the first 24 hours the injured men with moderate TBI showed increased T helper, T suppressor and cytokine activity accompanied by leukocytosis, elevated hemoglobin levels, lymphopenia, low concentrations of red blood cells, and lowered hematocrit. Men with lymphocytosis had a high concentration of helpers, suppressors, cytokines and natural killers not only compared to the injured men with lymphopenia (3 - 4 times as much), but also higher than the average physiological ranges of the above-mentioned concentrations of immunocompetent cells (2 - 3 times as much, depending on the indicator).