Grant: Project Grant

Concussions are a growing health concern, with over 4 million occurring annually in sport and recreation in North America. These injuries are associated with a variety of impairments in thinking (confusion, feeling "slow"), emotion (anger, depression) and physical function (dizziness, nausea). Currently, medical clearance (a "clean bill of health") is based on resolution of symptoms and performance on tests measuring thinking ability. These assessments do not directly measure the severity of brain injury. This is a significant concern, as athletes are at risk for significantly worse outcomes if they are re-injured before brain recovery is complete. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a versatile tool that can measure aspects of brain anatomy, function and blood flow. However at present, it has seen limited use in medical assessment of concussion. In this research project, we propose to use advanced MRI techniques to scan university athletes with and without concussion. For concussed athletes, we will perform scanning at key time-points in the recovery process, including while symptomatic (<7 days), time of medical clearance, and 1 month after clearance. This will enable us to visualize brain changes in concussed athletes, and to determine if the brain has recovered or is still healing at the time of medical clearance to return to play. This research will provide novel information about the brain's recovery from injury. It may be used to develop safer guidelines for concussion management, and in the future, will lay the groundwork to develop better measures of brain health and recovery.