Cerebrovascular reactivity changes in asymptomatic female athletes attributable to high school soccer participation

As participation in women’s soccer continues to grow and the longevity of female athletes’ careers continues to increase, prevention and care for mTBI in women’s soccer has become a major concern for female athletes since the long-term risks associated with a history of mTBI are well documented. Amo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain imaging and behavior 2017-02, Vol.11 (1), p.98-112
Main Authors: Svaldi, Diana O., McCuen, Emily C., Joshi, Chetas, Robinson, Meghan E., Nho, Yeseul, Hannemann, Robert, Nauman, Eric A., Leverenz, Larry J., Talavage, Thomas M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Athletes
Athletic Injuries - diagnostic imaging
Athletic Injuries - physiopathology
Biomarkers
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Brain
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain - physiopathology
Brain Injuries, Traumatic - diagnostic imaging
Brain Injuries, Traumatic - etiology
Brain Injuries, Traumatic - physiopathology
Brain mapping
Cerebrovascular Circulation - physiology
Cerebrovascular system
Change detection
Cognition
Cohort Studies
Collision dynamics
Concussion
Female
Football
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Head
Health risks
Humans
Loads (forces)
Longevity
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Mechanical loading
Medical imaging
Men
Monitoring
Neuroimaging
Neurology
Neuropsychology
Neuroradiology
Neurosciences
Original Research
Psychiatry
Reactivity
Soccer
Soccer - injuries
Students
Time Factors
Women
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Summary:As participation in women’s soccer continues to grow and the longevity of female athletes’ careers continues to increase, prevention and care for mTBI in women’s soccer has become a major concern for female athletes since the long-term risks associated with a history of mTBI are well documented. Among women’s sports, soccer exhibits among the highest concussion rates, on par with those of men’s football at the collegiate level. Head impact monitoring technology has revealed that “concussive hits” occurring directly before symptomatic injury are not predictive of mTBI, suggesting that the cumulative effect of repetitive head impacts experienced by collision sport athletes should be assessed. Neuroimaging biomarkers have proven to be valuable in detecting brain changes that occur before neurocognitive symptoms in collision sport athletes. Quantifying the relationship between changes in these biomarkers and head impacts experienced by female soccer athletes may prove valuable to developing preventative measures for mTBI. This study paired functional magnetic resonance imaging with head impact monitoring to track cerebrovascular reactivity changes throughout a season and to test whether the observed changes could be attributed to mechanical loading experienced by female athletes participating in high school soccer. Marked cerebrovascular reactivity changes were observed in female soccer athletes, relative both to non-collision sport control measures and pre-season measures and were localized to fronto-temporal aspects of the brain. These changes persisted 4–5 months after the season ended and recovered by 8 months after the season. Segregation of the total soccer cohort into cumulative loading groups revealed that population-level changes were driven by athletes experiencing high cumulative loads, although athletes experiencing lower cumulative loads still contributed to group changes. The results of this study imply a non-linear relationship between cumulative loading and cerebrovascular changes with a threshold, above which the risk, of injury likely increases significantly.
ISSN:1931-7557
1931-7565
DOI:10.1007/s11682-016-9509-6