{"id":423645,"date":"2024-11-27T05:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T05:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=423645"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Concussions-Slow-Brain-Activity-in-High-School-Football-Players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Concussions-Slow-Brain-Activity-in-High-School-Football-Players\/","title":{"rendered":"Concussions Slow Brain Activity in High School Football Players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><h2><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>A study conducted with young football players finds that concussion may slow a key form of &#8216;aperiodic&#8217; brain signaling<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>This type of signaling is thought to play a role in many important brain functions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>The findings support current guidelines that players fully recover from concussion before returning to the field<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>TUESDAY, Nov. 26, 2024 (HeathDay News) &#8212; A potentially important form of brain signaling appears to be affected whenever concussion strikes, according to new research involving high school football players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis study is important because it provides insight into both the mechanisms and the clinical implications of concussion in the maturing adolescent brain,\u201d said study co-lead author <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfu.ca\/bpk\/about\/people\/faculty\/Alex-Wiesman.html\">Alex Wiesman<\/a>, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He and his colleagues are slated to present their <a href=\"https:\/\/reg.meeting.rsna.org\/flow\/rsna\/rsna24\/MeetingCentralRSNA24\/page\/session-catalog\/session\/1720024753742001WZfc\">findings<\/a> next week in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).<\/p>\n<p>As the researchers explained, multiple concussion studies have already examined the effects of head injury on what&#8217;s known as periodic or &#8220;rhythmic&#8221; brain signaling, which is crucial to attention, movement or sensory processing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But much less has been known about non-rhythmic brain signaling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost previous neuroscience research has focused on rhythmic brain signaling, which is also called periodic neurophysiology,\u201d explained study lead author Kevin Yu, a neuroscience student at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. \u201cOn the other hand, aperiodic neurophysiology refers to brain signals that are not rhythmic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For a long time, neurologists haven&#8217;t paid a lot of attention to aperiodic signaling, considering it mere &#8220;background noise&#8221; in the brain. But that perspective is beginning to change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile it\u2019s often overlooked, aperiodic activity is important because it reflects brain cortical excitability,\u201d said study senior author <a href=\"https:\/\/school.wakehealth.edu\/faculty\/w\/christopher-t-whitlow\">Dr. Christopher Whitlow<\/a>, professor and chair of radiology at Wake Forest.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s now thought that cortical excitability could be a key player in how brain cells respond to stimulation. It might also play a role in memory, information processing, decision making, motor control, wakefulness and sleep, the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>In the new study, the research team examined neurological data on 91 high school football players, of whom 10 were diagnosed with a concussion.\u00a0 They compared players&#8217; pre- and post-season magnetoencephalography (MEG) data, a technology that tracks brain signaling.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The most important finding: Players who had suffered a concussion showed a definite &#8220;slowing&#8221; of their aperoidic brain activity, compared to concussion-free players.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Those slowdowns were reflected in poorer scores on tests the injured played took to gauge their cognition, the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>However, the research is still early, Weisman stressed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReduced excitability is conceptually a very different brain activity change than altered rhythms,&#8221; he said, &#8220;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\u2019s chemistry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For now, the findings support guidelines that mandate that any player take the necessary time to fully recover from a concussion before returning to play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt highlights the importance of monitoring kids carefully after any head injury and taking concussions seriously,&#8221; Whitlow said.<\/p>\n<p>Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Find out more about post-concussion care at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/concussion\/diagnosis-treatment\/drc-20355600\">Mayo Clinic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE: Radiological Society of North America, news release, Nov. 26, 2024<\/p>\n<p><h2><strong>What This Means For You<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Concussions appear to slow a key form of brain activity potentially linked to memory, decision making and motor control.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/81157cb9d71c5cc602c0ed534801febe.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>football concussion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways A study conducted with young football players finds that concussion may slow a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}