Yu Kevin C, Wiesman Alex I, Davenport Elizabeth, Flashman Laura A, Urban Jillian, Nagarajan Srikantan S, Sai Kiran Solingpuram, Stitzel Joel, Maldjian Joseph A, Whitlow Christopher T
Radiology Informatics and Image Processing Laboratory, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Department of Biomedical Physiology & Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
medRxiv. 2024 Nov 1:2024.09.23.24314232. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.23.24314232.
American tackle football is associated with high rates of concussion, leading to neurophysiological disturbances and debilitating clinical symptoms. Previous investigations of the neurophysiological effects of concussion have largely ignored aperiodic neurophysiological activity, which is a marker of cortical excitability.
We examined whether concussion during a season of high school football is related to changes in aperiodic and periodic neurophysiological activity and whether any such changes are associated with clinical outcomes.
Pre- and post-season resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG) data were collected from 91 high school football players over as many as four seasons of play, for a total of 278 data collections. During these seasons of football play, a cohort of 10 individuals were diagnosed with concussion. MEG data were source-imaged, frequency-transformed and parameterized, and linear mixed models were used to examine effects of concussion on pre-to-post-season changes in neurophysiological activity. Scores on the Post-Concussive Symptom Inventory were correlated with pre-to-post-season neurophysiological changes to determine their clinical relevance.
Concussion was associated with increased aperiodic exponents in superior frontal cortices, indicating a relative reduction in cortical excitability. This slowing of aperiodic neurophysiology mediated concussion effects on raw delta and gamma power and was associated with worse cognitive concerns across participants. Pre-to-post-season changes in aperiodic-corrected alpha and theta rhythmic activity were also decreased in posterior cortices in concussed players.
These findings indicate that concussion alters both the excitability and rhythmic signaling of the cortex, with differing spatial topographies and implications for clinical symptoms.
美式橄榄球运动与高脑震荡发生率相关，会导致神经生理紊乱和使人衰弱的临床症状。先前关于脑震荡神经生理影响的研究很大程度上忽略了非周期性神经生理活动，而这是皮质兴奋性的一个指标。
我们研究了高中橄榄球赛季期间的脑震荡是否与非周期性和周期性神经生理活动的变化有关，以及任何此类变化是否与临床结果相关。
在多达四个赛季的比赛中，收集了91名高中橄榄球运动员赛季前和赛季后的静息态脑磁图（MEG）数据，共收集了278组数据。在这些橄榄球赛季期间，有10名运动员被诊断为脑震荡。对MEG数据进行源成像、频率转换和参数化，并使用线性混合模型来研究脑震荡对赛季前到赛季后神经生理活动变化的影响。将脑震荡后症状量表的得分与赛季前到赛季后的神经生理变化进行相关性分析，以确定其临床相关性。
脑震荡与额上叶皮质非周期性指数增加有关，表明皮质兴奋性相对降低。这种非周期性神经生理学的减慢介导了脑震荡对原始δ波和γ波功率的影响，并且与所有参与者更严重的认知问题相关。脑震荡运动员后皮质中经非周期性校正的α波和θ波节律活动的赛季前到赛季后的变化也有所减少。
这些发现表明，脑震荡会改变皮质的兴奋性和节律性信号，具有不同的空间拓扑结构，并对临床症状产生影响。
