My main focus is traumatic brain injury (TBI), the most common cause of mortality and morbidity in the young. I work on translational research-clinical patient-orientated research as well as experimental TBI research using clinically-relevant animal models of TBI. My clinical research involves the whole spectrum of the disease from the most severely brain-injured patient treated in the neurocritical care unit and by neurosurgery- to milder forms of TBI including sports-related concussions. I try to understand the white matter pathology in TBI with a focus on axonal injury, demyelination and vulnerability of the oligodendrocyte. I use advanced neuromonitoring and novel biomarkers in the acute setting, and advanced neuroImaging including PET and MR at the chronic phase where the aim is development of improved therapies. In the experimental setting, the models are developed to target various types of TBI, including models for repetitive sports-related concussions. My focus areas are a) injury to the white matter, where a focus is enhancing recovery of axons, rescuing oligodendrocytes and promoting remyelination b) targeting neuroinflammation which may have detrimental effects on recovery and c) understanding the long-term consequences of TBI, including the increased risk of neurodegeneration and Alzheimers disease. To study this, tau and beta-amyloid- accumulating in the brains of Alzheimers disease patients- are evaluated also in human TBI using a tissue bank as well as novel PET techniques. An overall aim is to understand the link a-c, how axonal injury initiates neuroinflammation that will then "drive" processes leading to neurodegeneration/dementias. d) An additional important focus is to understand and promote plasticity after TBI. Since axons will not recover after injury and lost neurons will not be replaced after TBI- it is suprising that there is clinical recovery. To understand the potential of the brain to reorganize is a key in promoting better outcome.