Krizman Jennifer, Colegrove Danielle, Cunningham Jenna, Bonacina Silvia, Nicol Trent, Nerrie Matt, Kraus Nina
Department of Communication Sciences, Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
Department of Sports Medicine, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
Brain Inj. 2025 Jan 2;39(1):17-25. doi: 10.1080/02699052.2024.2396012. Epub 2024 Sep 3.
Diagnosis, assessment, and management of sports-related concussion require a multi-modal approach. Yet, currently, an objective assessment of auditory processing is not included. The auditory system is uniquely complex, relying on exquisite temporal precision to integrate signals across many synapses, connected by long axons. Given this complexity and precision, together with the fact that axons are highly susceptible to damage from mechanical force, we hypothesize that auditory processing is susceptible to concussive injury.
We measured the frequency-following response (FFR), a scalp-recorded evoked potential that assesses processing of complex sound features, including pitch and phonetic identity. FFRs were obtained on male Division I Collegiate football players prior to contact practice to determine a pre-season baseline of auditory processing abilities, and again after sustaining a sports-related concussion. We predicted that concussion would decrease pitch and phonetic processing relative to the student-athlete's preseason baseline.
We found that pitch and phonetic encoding was smaller post-concussion. Student-athletes who sustained a second concussion showed similar declines after each injury.
Auditory processing should be included in the multimodal assessment of sports-related concussion. Future studies that extend this work to other sports, other injuries (e.g. blast exposure), and to female athletes are needed.
与运动相关的脑震荡的诊断、评估和管理需要多模式方法。然而，目前尚未包括对听觉处理的客观评估。听觉系统极其复杂，依靠精确的时间精度来整合跨越许多突触的信号，这些突触由长轴突连接。鉴于这种复杂性和精确性，再加上轴突极易受到机械力损伤这一事实，我们推测听觉处理容易受到脑震荡损伤。
我们测量了频率跟随反应（FFR），这是一种头皮记录的诱发电位，用于评估对包括音高和语音识别在内的复杂声音特征的处理。在男子一级大学橄榄球运动员进行接触性训练前获取FFR，以确定听觉处理能力的季前基线，在遭受与运动相关的脑震荡后再次测量。我们预测，与学生运动员的季前基线相比，脑震荡会降低音高和语音处理能力。
我们发现脑震荡后音高和语音编码变小。遭受第二次脑震荡的学生运动员在每次受伤后都出现了类似的下降。
听觉处理应纳入与运动相关脑震荡的多模式评估中。未来需要将这项工作扩展到其他运动、其他损伤（如爆炸暴露）以及女性运动员的研究。
