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In a new study, mice showed improvements in sleep disturbances that were caused by brain injuries when they were fed a cocktail of key amino acids. This observation opens up a new prospect for treatment of currently untreatable traumatic brain injury (TBI) that affects millions of people.

“If this type of dietary treatment is proved to help patients recover function after traumatic brain injury, it could become an important public health benefit,” said study co-leader Akiva S. Cohen, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in a press release.

For this study Cohen collaborated with two more experts in sleep medicine. Every year, around 2 million people suffer from TBI alone in the U.S. This accounts for a major cause of disability across all age groups. Majority of the reported TBI cases (75 per cent of them) are of milder forms. These include concussion, cognitive, motor and sleep problems.

“Sleep disturbances, such as excessive daytime sleepiness and nighttime insomnia, disrupt quality of life and can delay cognitive recovery in patients with TBI,” said first author Miranda M. Lim, M.D., Ph.D., formerly at the Penn Sleep Center in the press release.

Researchers investigated the use of selected branched chain amino acids that are involved in the communication among neurons and also help in maintaining a normal balance in brain activity.

“These results in an animal model provide a proof-of-principle for investigating this dietary intervention as a treatment for TBI patients,” Cohen concluded. “If a dietary supplement can improve sleeping and waking patterns as well as cognitive problems, it could help brain-injured patients regain crucial functions.”

The developments of the study is published in Science Translational Medicine.