Risk of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in one season of high school football with pre- and post- season imaging and cognitive data. 1

1 - Davenport EM, Whitlow CT, Urban JE, Espeland MA, Jung Y, Rosenbaum DA, Gioia GA, Powers AK, Stitzel JD, Maldjian JA. Abnormal white matter integrity related to head impact exposure in a season of high school varsity football. J Neurotrauma. 2014 Oct 1; 31(19):1617-1624.

Proposal Slide 1:

Should NFL players undergo high quality MRIs, including Diffuse Tensor Imaging (DTI), and cognitive testing, prior to and after the playing season to characterize MRI and cognitive changes so that players and parents can make more informed decisions regarding the risk of playing high school football?

Estimated cost: $3,500 per player per season

Proposal Slide 2:

Create an NFL Imaging data library

• The NFL Imaging data library can be made available on-line to research groups throughout the county.

• Anonymity can be preserved by assigning anonymous IDs to the image sets.

• Meta-data from players such as position, tackles, downs played, age, years played, race, number of recorded concussions, etc., can be associated with each set of images (per season, per player) and made available to researchers.

• Studies comparing changes in MRI with meta-data can be easily performed by researchers granted access to this data so that analysis can be performed and disseminated to the public at a minimal cost.

1 - Davenport EM, Whitlow CT, Urban JE, Espeland MA, Jung Y, Rosenbaum DA, Gioia GA, Powers AK, Stitzel JD, Maldjian JA. Abnormal white matter integrity related to head impact exposure in a season of high school varsity football. J Neurotrauma. 2014 Oct 1; 31(19):1617-1624.

Recently, a research group in North Carolina found abnormal white matter integrity on MRI in 24 high school football players measured during a season of football. 1

Click HERE to read the Davenport (2014) study. Pubmed ID: 24786802http://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=smhs_psych_facpubs

Results:Cumulative head impacts from a season of high school varsity football can produce changes in the brain, even in the absence of clinically diagnosed concussion.

Quantitative relationship between head impact metrics and DTI scalars in non-concussed subjects was demonstrated.

Objective of the Davemport (2014) Study: To compare head impact exposure in the form of risk-weighted cumulative acceleration experienced in one season of high school football with pre- and postseason imaging and cognitive data.

Click HERE to read the Davenport (2014) study. Pubmed ID: 24786802http://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=smhs_psych_facpubs

It was shown that a single season of football at the high school level can produce MRI measureable brain changes that have been previously associated with mild traumatic brain injury.

It was shown that these impact-related changes in the brain have a strong association with a postseason change in cognitive function.

A significant relationship between changes in (DTI) MRI measures and cumulative impacts using biomechanical metrics in the absence of clinical concussion was demonstrated.

Conclusions in the Davenport (2014) Study:

Click HERE to read the Davenport (2014) study. Pubmed ID: 24786802http://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=smhs_psych_facpubs