School of Graduate Studies, Biomedical Sciences, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Newark, NJ, USA.
Department of Kinesiology and Health, Rutgers University - New Brunswick, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2021 Sep;43(7):704-715. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2021.1991893. Epub 2021 Nov 13.
Impairments in cognitive performance after sport-related concussion (SRC) typically resolve within weeks of the injury, whereas alterations to white matter (WM) organization have been found to persist longer into the chronic injury stage. However, longer-term associations between cognition and WM organization following SRC have not been studied. The objective of this study was to compare WM organization and cognitive performance in collegiate athletes an average of almost 4 years post-SRC to athletes with no history of SRC.
National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III athletes (n = 71, age = 19.3 ± 1.2; 14 with self-reported SRC) completed a neurocognitive assessment and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). WM organization was assessed by extracting measures of fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and radial diffusivity (RD) from 20 WM regions of interest (ROIs). Multivariate partial least squares analyses were used to compare athletes with and without a history of SRC and assess relationships between DTI-derived metrics of WM organization and cognitive measures.
Cognitive performance and ROI metrics did not differ between athletes with and without prior SRC. However, among athletes with a history of SRC, better executive function, processing speed, and memory but worse choice reaction time were associated with higher FA and lower MD and RD in several WM tracts.
Athletes with a history of SRC demonstrated greater associations between cognitive performance and WM organization, but also variability in the domains showing associations. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the importance of examining brain-behavior relationships several years after SRC to better gauge how WM organization supports cognition.
运动相关性脑震荡（SRC）后认知表现的损害通常在损伤后的数周内得到解决，而白质（WM）组织的改变已被发现持续存在更长时间进入慢性损伤阶段。然而，SRC 后认知与 WM 组织之间的长期关联尚未得到研究。本研究的目的是比较 SRC 后平均近 4 年的大学生运动员与无 SRC 史运动员的 WM 组织和认知表现。
国家大学生体育协会三级运动员（n=71，年龄=19.3±1.2；14 名自述有 SRC）完成了神经认知评估和弥散张量成像（DTI）。WM 组织通过从 20 个 WM 感兴趣区（ROI）中提取分数各向异性（FA）、平均弥散度（MD）和径向弥散度（RD）的指标来评估。使用多元偏最小二乘法分析比较有和无 SRC 史的运动员，并评估 WM 组织的 DTI 衍生指标与认知测量之间的关系。
有和无 SRC 史的运动员的认知表现和 ROI 指标没有差异。然而，在有 SRC 史的运动员中，更好的执行功能、处理速度和记忆，但更差的选择反应时间与几个 WM 束的 FA 较高、MD 和 RD 较低有关。
有 SRC 史的运动员表现出认知表现和 WM 组织之间更强的关联，但关联的领域也存在差异。总之，这些发现表明，在 SRC 后几年检查脑-行为关系对于更好地评估 WM 组织如何支持认知非常重要。
