Kashyap Pratik, Shenk Trey E, Svaldi Diana O, Lycke Roy J, Lee Taylor A, Tamer Gregory G, Nauman Eric A, Talavage Thomas M
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
Neurotrauma Rep. 2022 Jan 28;3(1):57-69. doi: 10.1089/neur.2021.0060. eCollection 2022.
Observations of short-term changes in the neural health of youth athletes participating in collision sports (e.g., football and soccer) have highlighted a need to explore potential structural alterations in brain tissue volumes for these persons. Studies have shown biochemical, vascular, functional connectivity, and white matter diffusivity changes in the brain physiology of these athletes that are strongly correlated with repetitive head acceleration exposure. Here, research is presented that highlights regional anatomical volumetric measures that change longitudinally with accrued subconcussive trauma. A novel pipeline is introduced that provides simplified data analysis on standard-space template to quantify group-level longitudinal volumetric changes within these populations. For both sports, results highlight incremental relative regional volumetric changes in the subcortical cerebrospinal fluid that are strongly correlated with head exposure events greater than a 50-G threshold at the short-term post-season assessment. Moreover, longitudinal regional gray matter volumes are observed to decrease with time, only returning to baseline/pre-participation levels after sufficient (5-6 months) rest from collision-based exposure. These temporal structural volumetric alterations are significantly different from normal aging observed in sex- and age-matched controls participating in non-collision sports. Future work involves modeling repetitive head exposure thresholds with multi-modal image analysis and understanding the underlying physiological reason. A possible pathophysiological pathway is presented, highlighting the probable metabolic regulatory mechanisms. Continual participation in collision-based activities may represent a risk wherein recovery cannot occur. Even when present, the degree of the eventual recovery remains to be explored, but has strong implications for the well-being of collision-sport participants.
对参与碰撞性运动（如橄榄球和足球）的青少年运动员神经健康的短期变化观察表明，有必要探索这些人的脑组织体积潜在结构改变。研究显示，这些运动员大脑生理学中的生化、血管、功能连接和白质扩散率变化与反复头部加速暴露密切相关。在此，介绍了一项研究，该研究突出了随累积的轻微脑震荡创伤而纵向变化的区域解剖体积测量。引入了一种新颖的流程，可对标准空间模板进行简化数据分析，以量化这些人群中的组级纵向体积变化。对于这两项运动，结果均突出了皮质下脑脊液中相对区域体积的增量变化，这些变化与赛季后短期评估中大于50-G阈值的头部暴露事件密切相关。此外，观察到纵向区域灰质体积随时间减少，仅在从基于碰撞的暴露中充分休息（5 - 6个月）后才恢复到基线/参与前水平。这些时间性结构体积改变与参与非碰撞性运动的性别和年龄匹配对照中观察到的正常衰老有显著差异。未来的工作包括用多模态图像分析对反复头部暴露阈值进行建模，并理解潜在的生理原因。提出了一条可能的病理生理途径，突出了可能的代谢调节机制。持续参与基于碰撞的活动可能代表一种无法恢复的风险。即使存在恢复，最终恢复的程度仍有待探索，但对碰撞性运动参与者的健康有重大影响。
