Axonal response to traumatic brain injury: reactive axonal change, deafferentation, and neuroplasticity.

Axonal injury appears to be a feature common to all traumatic brain injuries, and has been linked to much of the morbidity seen in head-injured patients. We consider how such axonal injury contributes to morbidity and also sets the stage for CNS reorganization postinjury. Efforts should continue to determine the correlates of such reorganization and to find therapeutic strategies to expedite it.