N-acetylcysteine Improves Blast-Induced Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Michael E. Hoffer et al. reported in the journal PLosOne in 2013 that veterans with blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury had a better acute outcome when they were given the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) within the first 24 hours after the trauma versus when they were given placebo during the same period. Forty-two percent of those receiving placebo had a good acute outcome, while 86% of those receiving N-acetylcysteine had a good acute outcome. Memory loss, sleep disturbance, dizziness, and headaches all improved more in the N-acetylcysteine group. NAC’s benefits diminished when it was given 3 or 7 days after the trauma.
Editor’s Note: These data add to the growing list of neuropsychiatric syndromes in which NAC has shown efficacy. These include schizophrenia, bipolar depression, unipolar depression, cocaine and heroin addiction, gambling addiction, trichotillomania (compulsive hair-pulling), obsessive-compulsive disorder (as an adjunctive treatment to SSRIs), and improvement in irritability and stereotypy (repetitive behaviors) in children with autism.
Given what appears so far to be a relatively benign side effects profile for NAC, and the potential for severe consequences from traumatic brain injury (TBI), a case for wider use of NAC (for example in emergency rooms) might be made.
The mechanisms of action of NAC in different syndromes remains to be clarified. Researcher Michael Berk used NAC in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and more recently in unipolar depression because it has antioxidant properties. Peter Kalivas found that NAC can normalize glutamate in the reward area of the brain through actions on the cystine-glutamate exchanger, and it also increases clearance of glutamate by increasing the glutamate transporter in glial cells. NAC decreases the amount of cued glutamate release in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which may be helpful in recovery from pathological habits. NAC also has anti-inflammatory and perhaps neuroprotective effects, and it increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which protects neurons and is important for long-term learning and memory. Which of these many actions is important in the treatment of PTSD is not yet known.
