Citation

Puvvada SK, Davenport EM, Holcomb JM, Miller LE, Whitlow CT, Powers AK, Maldjian JA, Stitzel JD, Urban JE. Ann. Biomed. Eng. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10439-021-02862-4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Approximately 3.5 million youth and adolescents in the US play American football, a sport with one of the highest rates of concussion. Repeated subconcussive head impact exposure (HIE) may lead to negative neurological sequelae. To understand HIE as an independent predictive variable, quantitative cumulative kinematic metrics have been developed to capture the volume (i.e., number), severity (i.e., magnitude), and frequency (i.e., time-weighting by the interval between head impacts). In this study, time-weighted cumulative HIE metrics were compared with directional changes in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics. Changes in DTI conducted on a per-season, per-player basis were assessed as a dependent variable. Directional changes were defined separately as increases and decreases in the number of abnormal voxels relative to non-contact sport controls. Biomechanical and imaging data from 117 athletes (average age 11.9 ± 1.0 years) enrolled in this study was analyzed. Cumulative HIE metrics were more strongly correlated with increases in abnormal voxels than decreases in abnormal voxels. Additionally, across DTI sub-measures, increases and decreases in mean diffusivity (MD) had the strongest relationships with HIE metrics (increases in MD: average R(2) = 0.1753, average p = 0.0002; decreases in MD: average R(2) = 0.0997, average p = 0.0073). This encourages further investigation into the physiological phenomena represented by directional changes.

Keywords: American football

Language: en

Keywords

Concussion; Head injury; Football; HIT System; Injury Risk; Magnetic resonance imaging; Youth Athletes