It is accepted that an unknown concussion is dangerous to the health and safety of the athlete. To prevent long-term damage, sports organizations have focused on recognizing the signs of a concussion, providing treatment to an athlete as soon as an injury is suspected.
However, a growing body of evidence shows that even small strokes have long-term effects on the brain.
Player or player-to-the-ground contact in football, elbows to the head in basketball, or heading the ball in soccer can cause a concussion, a brain injury that is not enough to cause the serious symptoms of a detectable concussion.
Some athletes’ brains do not recover from these repeated hits, but for others, subconcussions have been shown to cause traumatic brain injury (CTE), brain damage that causes mental instability and problems with memory, concentration and thinking.
A collaborative study between Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory and Northwestern University Athletics and Recreation and published in the journal Exercise, Sport, and Movement has revealed a brain test that may one day help identify where an athlete is going.
“There has never been a way to know if an athlete will reach the peak – a slow stroke when CTE will be the inevitable result of repeated exposure,” said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Neurobiology and Otolaryngology in the School of Communication. Northwestern, who served as lead author on the study.
“By recognizing the proverbial ‘canary in the coalmine,’ we can increase player safety without compromising the game we love,” Kraus said. “Determining what is ‘too much’ for each player can prevent the big changes that need to happen in the game.”
A natural measurement, called frequency-following response (FFR), is obtained by placing a few sensors on the athlete’s head and playing a sound to their ears. FFR is objective and easy to find.
Unlike current concussion tests, which test thinking, vision and perception, the FFR looks at the ears. The authors found that the brain’s response to pitch – the part of sound that distinguishes notes on a piano or different voices – is poorer in contact runners compared to non-contact runners. Auditory changes can be more difficult than other areas currently involved in mechanical analysis.
This finding was specific to male athletes, whose years of playing contact sports led to poor balance, according to the study.
Pitch is processed in several areas of the brain, and what the sensors pick up shows the activity of connections within and across that area. The poorer strength of the associated runners indicates a reduction in the firing rate of these neurons due to continuous activity.
“Why exactly women’s brains don’t seem to show a greater sensitivity to playing video games needs to be studied,” Kraus said. “It may be that estrogen mediates the relationship between subconcussions and brain damage.”
Kraus is an audiologist, whose ideas about hearing and how it can inform us about brain health are explored in his book Sound Mind.
“Overall, this study shows that auditory processing can be a useful tool for scientists and clinicians to assess and understand the effects of stroke on brain health,” he said.
Exercise continues to be one of the best things we can do for our overall health, Kraus said, including our brain health. However, this research can help people make informed decisions about the sports they want to play and the effects of different activities in different climates.
The study involved more than 700 male and female athletes who played 19 contact and non-contact sports, ranging from swimming, cross country and golf (non-contact) to soccer, lacrosse and field hockey (contact).
Other authors of the study “Subconcussion revealed by brain imaging” include Danielle Colegrove, Rembrandt Otto-Meyer, Silvia Bonacina, Trent Nicol, Jenna Cunningham and Jennifer Krizman, all from Northwestern University.
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