Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) resulting from sports related concussion (SRC) is a substantial public health concern with ~ 1.6 ? 3.8 million injuries per year in the United States. Although extremes of head injury are recognizable, mTBI associated with SRC is more difficult to diagnose and is complicated by subtle physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms that may manifest up to 48 h following a concussive blow. In preliminary studies using a rat model of mTBI and in a small clinical trial of patients with mTBI due to motor vehicle accidents or unintentional falls we identified a novel post translationally modified marker of neuronal injury, ubiquitinated visinin like protein 1 (ubVILIP-1), that is released into blood rapidly after injury. To facilitate rapid measurement of circulating ubVILIP-1 we developed a lateral flow device (LFD) that provides detection of the biomarker in less than 20 min.
The aim of the current proposal is determine if ubVILIP-1 levels can be used to identify athletes with SRC by establishing baseline levels of the marker and then quantifying changes that occur following SRC and to correlate ubVILIP-1 levels with clinical metrics including SCAT3 measures.
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) resulting from sports related concussion (SRC) is a substantial public health concern with ~ 1.6 ? 3.8 million injuries per year in the United States. Despite considerable research there remains a critical need for a point of care test that can rapidly measure a maker of injury in blood on the playing field during a clinically useful time frame. Preliminary and future studies described in this proposal aim to test the usefulness of a lateral flow device (LFD) that quantifies a specific post-translational modification of visinin like protein 1 (VILIP-1), a neuron specific Ca2+-sensor protein released into blood following mTBI as an objective marker of SRC.
