School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2019 Jun;13(3):735-749. doi: 10.1007/s11682-018-9861-9.
Long term neurological impairments due to repetitive head trauma are a growing concern for collision sport athletes. American Football has the highest rate of reported concussions among male high school athletes, a position held by soccer for female high school athletes. Recent research has shown that subconcussive events experienced by collision sport athletes can be a further significant source of accrued damage. Collision sport athletes experience hundreds of subconcussive events in a single season, and these largely go uninvestigated as they produce no overt clinical symptoms. Continued participation by these seemingly uninjured athletes is hypothesized to increase susceptibility to diagnoseable brain injury. This study paired magnetic resonance spectroscopy with head impact monitoring to quantify the relationship between metabolic changes and head acceleration event characteristics in high school-aged male football and female soccer collision sport athletes. During the period of exposure to subconcussive events, asymptomatic male (football) collision sport athletes exhibited statistically significant changes in concentrations of glutamate+glutamine (Glx) and total choline containing compounds (tCho) in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and female (soccer) collision sport athletes exhibited changes in glutamate+glutamine (Glx) in primary motor cortex. Neurometabolic alterations observed in football athletes during the second half of the season were found to be significantly associated with the average acceleration per head acceleration events, being best predicted by the accumulation of events exceeding 50 g. These marked deviations in neurometabolism, in the absence of overt symptoms, raise concern about the neural health of adolescent collision-sport athletes and suggest limiting exposure to head acceleration events may help to ameliorate the risk of subsequent cognitive impairment.
由于重复性头部创伤导致的长期神经损伤是碰撞运动运动员日益关注的问题。美式足球是男高中生报告脑震荡率最高的运动，而足球则是女高中生报告脑震荡率最高的运动。最近的研究表明，碰撞运动运动员经历的亚临床性脑震荡事件可能是累积损伤的另一个重要来源。在一个赛季中，碰撞运动运动员会经历数百次亚临床性脑震荡事件，而且由于这些事件没有明显的临床症状，因此很大程度上没有得到调查。这些看似未受伤的运动员继续参与运动，被假设会增加可诊断性脑损伤的易感性。这项研究将磁共振波谱与头部撞击监测相结合，以定量分析高中年龄段男性足球和女性足球碰撞运动运动员代谢变化与头部加速度事件特征之间的关系。在亚临床性脑震荡事件暴露期间，无症状的男性（足球）碰撞运动运动员在背外侧前额叶皮层中表现出谷氨酸+谷氨酰胺（Glx）和总胆碱化合物（tCho）浓度的统计学显著变化，而女性（足球）碰撞运动运动员在初级运动皮层中表现出谷氨酸+谷氨酰胺（Glx）的变化。在赛季后半段观察到的足球运动员的神经代谢改变与每个头部加速度事件的平均加速度显著相关，加速度超过 50g 的事件积累可以很好地预测这些改变。在没有明显症状的情况下，这些神经代谢的明显偏差引起了人们对青少年碰撞运动运动员的神经健康的关注，并表明限制头部加速度事件的暴露可能有助于减轻随后认知障碍的风险。
