Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
BMC Neurol. 2013 Aug 26;13:109. doi: 10.1186/1471-2377-13-109.
Retired athletes with a history of sports concussions experience cognitive and motor declines with aging, and the risk of severe neurodegenerative conditions is magnified in this population. The present study investigated the effects of aging on motor system metabolism and function in former university-level athletes who sustained their last concussion several decades prior to testing.
To test the hypothesis that age and remote concussions induce functional as well as metabolic alterations of the motor system, we used proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy to detect metabolic abnormalities in the primary motor cortex and the serial reaction time task (SRTT) to evaluate motor learning.
Our results indicate that motor learning is significantly reduced in former concussed athletes relative to controls. In addition, glutamate/H2O ratio in M1 was disproportionately reduced in concussed athletes with advancing age and was found to strongly correlate with motor learning impairments.
Findings from this study provide evidence that the acquisition of a repeated motor sequence is compromised in the aging concussed brain and that its physiological underpinnings could implicate disproportionate reductions of M1 glutamate concentrations with advancing age.
有运动性脑震荡病史的退役运动员随着年龄的增长会出现认知和运动能力下降的情况，而在这群人中，严重神经退行性疾病的风险会增加。本研究调查了在测试前几十年曾遭受过最后一次脑震荡的前大学水平运动员的老龄化对运动系统代谢和功能的影响。
为了检验年龄和陈旧性脑震荡会导致运动系统的功能和代谢改变的假设，我们使用质子磁共振波谱检测初级运动皮层的代谢异常，并使用序列反应时间任务（SRTT）评估运动学习。
我们的结果表明，与对照组相比，以前受过脑震荡的运动员的运动学习明显下降。此外，随着年龄的增长，M1 中的谷氨酸/H2O 比值不成比例地降低，并且与运动学习障碍强烈相关。
这项研究的结果提供了证据表明，在老龄化的脑震荡大脑中，重复运动序列的习得能力受损，其生理基础可能与 M1 谷氨酸浓度随年龄增长不成比例地降低有关。
