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 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 tests comparing their thinking ability before and after injury. These assessments do not directly measure the severity of brain injury. This is a 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. One major limitation is that we do not know how the brain has changed, relative to "pre-injury" brain structure and function, making it difficult to determine when the brain has fully recovered from injury. In this project, we propose to use advanced MRI techniques to scan a large group of university athletes without concussion. For athletes in this group that go on to receive a concussion, we will perform scanning at key time-points in the recovery process, including early injury (<5 days), time of medical clearance, and 1 month after clearance. This will allow us to visualize brain changes in concussed athletes, relative to their "normal" uninjured brain, 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.