Kids' Outcomes And Long-term Abilities (KOALA): protocol for a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of mild traumatic brain injury in children 6 months to 6 years of age

Introduction: Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is highly prevalent, especially in children under 6 years. However, little research focuses on the consequences of mTBI early in development. The objective of the Kids' Outcomes And Long-term Abilities (KOALA) study is to document the impact of early mTBI on children's motor, cognitive, social and behavioural functioning, as well as on quality of life, stress, sleep and brain integrity. Methods and analyses KOALA is a prospective, multicentre, longitudinal cohort study of children aged 6 months to 6 years at the time of injury/recruitment. Children who sustain mTBI (n=150) or an orthopaedic injury (n=75) will be recruited from three paediatric emergency departments (PEDs), and compared with typically developing children (community controls, n=75). A comprehensive battery of prognostic and outcome measures will be collected in the PED, at 10 days, 1, 3 and 12 months postinjury. Biological measures, including measures of brain structure and function (magnetic resonance imaging, MRI), stress (hair cortisol), sleep (actigraphy) and genetics (saliva), will complement direct testing of function using developmental and neuropsychological measures and parent questionnaires. Group comparisons and predictive models will test the a priori hypotheses that, compared with children from the community or with orthopaedic injuries, children with mTBI will (1) display more postconcussive symptoms and exhibit poorer motor, cognitive, social and behavioural functioning;(2) show evidence of altered brain structure and function, poorer sleep and higher levels of stress hormones. A combination of child, injury, socioenvironmental and psychobiological factors are expected to predict behaviour and quality of life at 1, 3 and 12 months postinjury. Ethics and dissemination The KOALA study is approved by the Sainte-Justine University Hospital, McGill University Health Centre and University of Calgary Conjoint Health Research Ethics Boards. Parents of participants will provide written consent. Dissemination will occur through peer-reviewed journals and an integrated knowledge translation plan

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure