• Ikbeom Jang, Il Yong Chun, Jared R Brosch, Sumra Bari, Yukai Zou, Brian R Cummiskey, Taylor A Lee, Roy J Lycke, Victoria N Poole, Trey E Shenk, Diana O Svaldi, Gregory G Tamer, Ulrike Dydak, Larry J Leverenz, Eric A Nauman, and Thomas M Talavage.
• School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States of America. Electronic address: jibikbam@gmail.com.
• Neuroimage Clin. 2019 Jan 1; 24: 101930.

AbstractRecent evidence of short-term alterations in brain physiology associated with repeated exposure to moderate intensity subconcussive head acceleration events (HAEs), prompts the question whether these alterations represent an underlying neural injury. A retrospective analysis combining counts of experienced HAEs and longitudinal diffusion-weighted imaging explored whether greater exposure to incident mechanical forces was associated with traditional diffusion-based measures of neural injury-reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) and increased mean diffusivity (MD). Brains of high school athletes (N = 61) participating in American football exhibited greater spatial extents (or volumes) experiencing substantial changes (increases and decreases) in both FA and MD than brains of peers who do not participate in collision-based sports (N = 15). Further, the spatial extents of the football athlete brain exhibiting traditional diffusion-based markers of neural injury were found to be significantly correlated with the cumulative exposure to HAEs having peak translational acceleration exceeding 20 g. This finding demonstrates that subconcussive HAEs induce low-level neurotrauma, with prolonged exposure producing greater accumulation of neural damage. The duration and extent of recovery associated with periods in which athletes do not experience subconcussive HAEs now represents a priority for future study, such that appropriate participation and training schedules may be developed to minimize the risk of long-term neurological dysfunction.Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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