Multiple traumas to the brain are the most common type of catastrophic injury and a leading cause of death in athletes. Multiple brain injuries may occur as the long-term disabilities resulting from a single mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) are often overlooked and the most obvious clinical symptoms appear to resolve rapidly. Most previous research has: a) failed to provide pure pre-injury status of MBTI subjects which may lead to misdiagnosis of the persistent or new neurological and behavioral deficits following a single brain injury;b) focused primarily on transient deficits after single MTBI, and failed to examine long-term deficits and symptoms of multiple MTBI;c) focused primarily on pathophysiology, neurocognitive or behavioral sequelae of MTBI in isolation;and d) failed to identify and predict athletes at risk for traumatic brain injury. We will build on our previous work and plan to identify and examine both transient and long-term behavioral, sensory-motor, neuropsychological, and neural mechanisms that are interactively affected by MTBI.
We aim to provide direct evidence that there are long-lasting residual disabilities in subjects suffering from MTBI. We hypothesize that the rate of brain injury symptom resolution predicts the probability of multiple brain injuries in athletes at risk.
Our specific aims are: 1) to identify neural mechanisms associated with transient and long-term residual postural abnormalities as a result of single and multiple MTBI;2) to identify abnormal mechanisms associated with neurocognitive deficits, including those specifically involved in postural control in subjects suffering from MTBI;3) to examine destabilizing neural mechanisms in MTBI subjects via manipulations of visual field motion;and, 4) to develop and test unsupervised pattern recognition algorithms for predicting athletes at risk for a single and multiple MTBI. The behavioral, neurocognitive and neural dysfunctions will be tested in student-athletes at risk prior to and after a single and multiple brain injuries using a longitudinal design. A set of tools for assessment of mild traumatic brain injury will be developed based on computer graphics and virtual reality (VR) technologies incorporated with modern human movement analysis and brain imaging (EEG and MRI) techniques. Preliminary research in our laboratory has provided strong evidence for the feasibility of the proposed approach to examine the functional changes in the brain, cognition and balance and to identify athletes at risk for a single and multiple MTBI. Brain damage has been referred to as the """"""""silent epidemic,"""""""" primarily due to its high level of incidence and the lack of acknowledgement when compared to many other large-scale health issues. In sport and recreational activities alone, there are approximately 300,000 concussions in the United States annually, carrying a $9 to $10-billion price tag for acute care and rehabilitation. In this context, single and multiple concussions are relevant to the study of brain injury in general and in traumatic brain injury in those at risk, such as athletes, as a prototypical example of both short and long-term brain disorders. This project seeks to develop new comprehensive concussion assessment procedures aimed at predicting subjects at risk for concussion and ultimately preventing multiple traumatic brain injuries.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01NS056227-04
Application #
7908717
Study Section
Clinical Neuroscience and Disease Study Section (CND)
Program Officer
Hicks, Ramona R
Project Start
2007-09-30
Project End
2012-08-31
Budget Start
2010-09-01
Budget End
2011-08-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$319,300
Indirect Cost
Name
Pennsylvania State University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Allied Health Profes
DUNS #
003403953
City
University Park
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
16802
Teel, Elizabeth F; Gay, Michael R; Arnett, Peter A et al. (2016) Differential Sensitivity Between a Virtual Reality Balance Module and Clinically Used Concussion Balance Modalities. Clin J Sport Med 26:162-6
Teel, Elizabeth F; Slobounov, Semyon M (2015) Validation of a virtual reality balance module for use in clinical concussion assessment and management. Clin J Sport Med 25:144-8
Gay, Michael; Ray, William; Johnson, Brian et al. (2015) Feasibility of EEG Measures in Conjunction With Light Exercise for Return-to-Play Evaluation After Sports-Related Concussion. Dev Neuropsychol 40:248-53
Slobounov, Semyon; Bazarian, Jeff; Bigler, Erin et al. (2014) Sports-related concussion: ongoing debate. Br J Sports Med 48:75-6
Teel, E F; Ray, W J; Geronimo, A M et al. (2014) Residual alterations of brain electrical activity in clinically asymptomatic concussed individuals: an EEG study. Clin Neurophysiol 125:703-707
Slobounov, Semyon M; Teel, Elizabeth; Newell, Karl M (2013) Modulation of cortical activity in response to visually induced postural perturbation: combined VR and EEG study. Neurosci Lett 547:6-9
Slobounov, Semyon; Sebastianelli, Wayne; Hallett, Mark (2012) Residual brain dysfunction observed one year post-mild traumatic brain injury: combined EEG and balance study. Clin Neurophysiol 123:1755-61
Johnson, Brian; Zhang, Kai; Gay, Michael et al. (2012) Metabolic alterations in corpus callosum may compromise brain functional connectivity in MTBI patients: an 1H-MRS study. Neurosci Lett 509:5-8
Barwick, Fiona; Arnett, Peter; Slobounov, Semyon (2012) EEG correlates of fatigue during administration of a neuropsychological test battery. Clin Neurophysiol 123:278-84
Johnson, Brian; Gay, Michael; Zhang, Kai et al. (2012) The use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the subacute evaluation of athletes recovering from single and multiple mild traumatic brain injury. J Neurotrauma 29:2297-304

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