His condition remains critical but stable. A few days after his F1 accident, we know a little more about the ailments from which Jules Bianchi suffers. The diagnosis issued by the medical bulletin is serious: it is a diffuse axonal lesion.
This severe form of head trauma (50% of serious head injuries) occurs after a violent deceleration-acceleration of the cranial box. The shock wave, consecutive to the automobile accident, associated with this effect of inertia (acceleration-deceleration) causes a lesion of the white matter. Clearly, head trauma is manifested by twisting and stretching lesions of axons, nerve fibers that make up white matter and which extend neurons (gray matter).
Doctor Dr Michel Desgeorges, neurosurgeon, explains to 20 minutes why, in the case of Jules Bianchi, it is the white matter that has toasted and not the cranial box: “In head trauma with helmet, whether for skiers or the pilots, all the kinetic energy released by the crash is transferred to the center of the brain because the cranial box is maintained, it cannot be deformed “.
Lesions of unknown severity
The diffuse head trauma of the young pilot would be, according to the specialist, close to what suffered Michael Schumacher. As in the case of the German F1 champion (victim of a skiing accident and currently in rehabilitation), it seems difficult to make predictions on the evolution of the Frenchman’s state of health: “It all depends on the energy which has been transmitted. It is sometimes better for the shock to be absorbed by the deformation of the helmet or the cranial box”, underlines Professor Pierre Amarenco, head of the neurology department at Bichat hospital, quoted by RTL. “There is hope that there are reversible lesions, and in particular the edema itself is reversible, if we manage to control it”.
Depending on the violence of the shock, the lesions are more or less serious, ranging from simple stretching of the axons to shearing of the nerve fibers. Head trauma often leaves serious sequelae in the patient. Degeneration of nerve fibers can affect motor skills such as walking or speaking.
