Concussions may lead to slower brain activity, according to new research due to be presented next week.
Scientists studied the brains of high school football players, specifically looking at a type of brain activity that has previously been dismissed as background noise on brain scans.
Contact sports such as football carry the risk of concussion, which has been linked to long-term brain damage in previous research, especially among younger people.
After a knock to the head, symptoms of concussion may include difficulty with balancing, memory and concentration.
A team of scientists studied brain scans of 91 high school football players before and after a season of playing, including 10 who had a concussion during that time.
They analyzed the patterns between symptoms of concussion and the magnetic fields produced by their brains' electrical currents.
In particular, the scientists focused on non-rhythmic, or aperiodic, brain activity. This has long been overlooked in neuroscientists, and not much is known about it.
Much more is known about the opposite—rhythmic, or periodic, brain activity—where brain signals happen in rhythmic patterns that contribute to brain functions, such as attention, movement and the processing of sensory information.
"While it's often overlooked, aperiodic activity is important because it reflects brain cortical excitability," said study senior author Dr. Christopher T. Whitlow, radiology professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in a statement.
Cortical excitability refers to the sensitivity of the brain's outer layer, the cortex, to brain signals; more excitability means more brain activity. It plays a key role in brain functions, such as learning, memory, information processing, decision-making, motor control and so on.
The scientists found that the high school football players who sustained concussions displayed slowed aperiodic activity, and greater slowing was strongly associated with worse post-concussion symptoms.
This slowed aperiodic activity was found in areas of the brain that contain chemicals linked with concussion symptoms, such as impaired concentration and memory.
"Our study opens the door to new ways of understanding and diagnosing concussions, using this novel type of brain activity that is associated with concussion symptoms," said Whitlow. "It highlights the importance of monitoring kids carefully after any head injury and taking concussions seriously."
Co-lead author Alex I. Wiesman, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, said in a statement: "This study is important because it provides insight into both the mechanisms and the clinical implications of concussion in the maturing adolescent brain.
"Reduced excitability is conceptually a very different brain activity change than altered rhythms and means that a clear next step for this work is to see whether these changes are related to effects of concussion on the brain's chemistry."
The scientists concluded that their research highlighted the importance of protecting young people from getting brain injuries in sports, and the importance of allowing them to fully recover from a concussion before returning to play.
These findings will be presented next week at an annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The study lead author was Kevin C. Yu, and other co-authors include Elizabeth M. Davenport, Laura A. Flashman, Jillian Urban, Srikantam S. Nagarajan, Kiran Solingapuram Sai, Joel Stitzel, and Dr. Joseph A. Maldjian.
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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