Fig. 2.

Descriptive plot of all eligible cross-sectional studies included for review. Studies are plotted based on mean age at injury of their sample against mean time between injury and MRI (years). Size of each point is proportional to the size of the TBI participant sample used in the study whilst the colour segregates clusters of studies which all use the same dataset of patients. To aid qualitative synthesis, studies were grouped into three major ‘bands’ of enquiry; i) an early stage (days to 1 year post-injury), ii) chronic stage (1–5 years post-injury) and iii) late chronic stage (9+ years post-injury). These band were qualitatively identified once studies where plotted in this way and are therefore based on the ‘natural’ grouping of the studies and therefore represent the current state of the literature.