What's All The Fuss?

Concussion (mild traumatic brain injury, mTBI)—and traumatic brain injury (TBI) more broadly—affects millions of people globally each year, with impacts extending far beyond the initial injury. While public attention has focused heavily on sport, particularly in professional leagues, TBI is a daily clinical reality in emergency departments worldwide, as well as in defence, occupational, and community settings.

Despite its prevalence, concussion remains difficult to diagnose accurately. Current assessment relies largely on clinical examination, symptom reporting, and tools such as the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), pupillary response, and neuroimaging. These approaches are essential for identifying severe injury, but they are limited in detecting mild or diffuse brain injury, where imaging is often normal and symptoms are subjective.

As a result, there is growing global interest in biological biomarkers that can provide objective insight into brain injury—particularly methods that are less invasive, scalable, and suitable for frontline use.

The burden of concussion is substantial—medically, socially, and economically.

• In the United States, traumatic brain injury contributes to tens of billions of dollars in annual costs, including healthcare utilisation and lost productivity¹.
• In Australia, sports-related concussions account for thousands of emergency presentations each year, placing pressure on health systems and follow-up services².
• In military populations, blast-related brain injury is associated with reduced readiness, long-term disability, and elevated mental health risk³.

The impact extends well beyond healthcare, affecting families, workplaces, and communities.

GLIA Diagnostics is developing a blood-based, point-of-care platform intended to support objective concussion assessment where decisions are made—in emergency departments, on the sideline, and in the field.

Key features include:

• Biological relevance: microRNA biomarkers associated with cellular stress and brain injury pathways
• Speed: designed for rapid turnaround at the point of care
• Versatility: applicable across clinical, sports, defence, and remote settings
• Scientific grounding: informed by peer-reviewed research and clinical collaboration

By providing biological context alongside clinical assessment, GLIA aims to reduce uncertainty, support safer decision-making, and improve recovery outcomes.

Concussion management is at a critical inflection point. Healthcare systems, sporting organisations, and defence forces are seeking objective, evidence-based tools to improve brain injury assessment and long-term outcomes.

GLIA’s platform is being developed to meet this need—supporting a shift from subjective judgement toward biologically informed care.

GLIA Diagnostics — making the invisible injury visible