Grant: Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Patient-Oriented Research

Concussions are a common brain injury in children that can have negative effects on physical and mental health. There is no test or biological maker to clearly determine when a concussion has occurred or when a person has fully recovered after concussion, making it a difficult injury for doctors to identify and treat. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a tool that records electrical signals generated by the brain. EEG may be able to uncover a biological marker of concussion. Research shows that the brain's electrical signals change after a concussion, but these studies were mainly completed with adults, in laboratories, and at a single time point. In order to determine if EEG may be helpful in identifying and managing youth concussion, researchers must study EEG in children with concussion at important medical time points and compare EEG findings to results on common concussion tests used by healthcare providers. We will have children with concussion and healthy children complete an EEG as well as routine concussion tests three times over 6-months. Our goals in this study are to: 1) determine which EEG outcomes can accurately separate children with concussion from healthy children; 2) describe any changes in EEG outcomes in healthy and concussed children throughout the study; 3) assess if EEG outcomes collected in children early following concussion can predict who will have on-going symptoms one month after injury; and 4) investigate whether EEG outcomes are related to performance on routine concussion tests in both heathy and concussed children. These findings may lead to better ways to identify and treat concussion. This can keep children with concussion safe by helping them avoid activities where there is a high-risk of sustaining a second concussion, creating better guidelines for returning to school and recreational activities, and providing more targeted rehabilitation sooner to reduce negative effects of concussion.