Induced comas help injured brains

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

updated 3:40 PM EST, Mon December 30, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher suffered severe head trauma in a skiing accident and arrived at a French hospital in a coma.

To promote healing after Sunday's accident, doctors are keeping the German driver in a medically induced coma and lowered his body temperature, said Dr. Jean-Francois Payen, chief anesthesiologist at University Hospital Center of Grenoble, France, where the driver is being treated.

Traumatic brain injury causes the brain to swell, just like the inflammation that happens when you injure an elbow or knee. But because the brain is trapped inside your skull, pressure on the brain increases and restricts a lot of critical functions, such as blood supply, said Dr. David Wright, director of emergency neurosciences in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine.

"You're worried because the skull is a closed space," said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. "As the brain starts to expand, the only place it has to go is down and out, and you damage the brain stem. You can die. You can create a lot of tissue damage."

Formula 1's Michael Schumacher in critical condition after skiing accident

Doctors take steps to try to reduce the energy requirements of the brain, which in turn reduces blood flow and pressure, and allows the brain to rest.

"It's kind of like cooling the engine down and allowing the healing process to, sort of, slowly occur," Wright said. "It also decreases the swelling of the brain, hopefully, and reduces the chance that you're going to get that increased intracranial pressure that's occurring."

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Induced comas help injured brains