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Sport-related concussions can result from a single high magnitude impact that generates concussive symptoms, repeated subconcussive head impacts aggregating to generate concussive symptoms, or a combined effect from the two mechanisms. The array of symptoms produced by these mechanisms may be clinically interpreted as a sport-related concussion. It was hypothesized that head impact exposure resulting in concussion is influenced by severity, total number, and frequency of subconcussive head impacts. The influence of total number and magnitude of impacts was previously explored, but frequency was investigated to a lesser degree. In this analysis, head impact frequency was investigated over a new metric called 'time delta', the time difference from the first recorded head impact of the day until the concussive impact. Four exposure metrics were analyzed over the time delta to determine whether frequency of head impact exposure was greater for athletes on their concussion date relative to other dates of contact participation. Those metrics included head impact frequency, head impact accrual rate, risk weighted exposure (RWE), and RWE accrual rate. Athletes experienced an elevated median number of impacts, RWE, and RWE accrual rate over the time delta on their concussion date compared to non-injury sessions. This finding suggests elevated frequency of head impact exposure on the concussion date compared to other dates that may precipitate the onset of concussion.

Repetitive head impact exposure sustained by athletes of contact sports has been hypothesized to be a mechanism for concussion and a possible explanation for the high degree of variability in sport-related concussion biomechanics. In an attempt to limit repetitive head impact exposure during the football preseason, the NCAA eliminated two-a-day practices in 2017, while maintaining the total number of team practice sessions. The objective of this study was to quantify head impact exposure during the preseason and regular season in Division I college football athletes to determine whether the 2017 NCAA ruling decreased head impact exposure. 342 unique athletes from five NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs were consented and enrolled. Head impacts were recorded using the Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System during the entire fall preseasons and regular seasons in 2016 and 2017. Despite the elimination of two-a-day practices, the number of preseason contact days increased in 2017, with an increase in average hourly impact exposure (i.e., contact intensity), resulting in a significant increase in total head impact burden (+ 26%) for the 2017 preseason. This finding would indicate that the 2017 NCAA ruling was not effective at reducing the head impact burden during the football preseason. Additionally, athletes sustained a significantly higher number of recorded head impacts per week (+ 40%) during the preseason than the regular season, implicating the preseason as a time of elevated repetitive head impact burden. With increased recognition of a possible association between repetitive head impact exposure and concussion, increased preseason exposure may predispose certain athletes to a higher risk of concussion during the preseason and regular season. Accordingly, efforts at reducing concussion incidence in contact sports should include a reduction in overall head impact exposure.

Studies of football athletes have implicated repetitive head impact exposure in the onset of cognitive and brain structural changes, even in the absence of diagnosed concussion. Those studies imply accumulating damage from successive head impacts reduces tolerance and increases risk for concussion. Support for this premise is that biomechanics of head impacts resulting in concussion are often not remarkable when compared to impacts sustained by athletes without diagnosed concussion. Accordingly, this analysis quantified repetitive head impact exposure in a cohort of 50 concussed NCAA Division I FBS college football athletes compared to controls that were matched for team and position group. The analysis quantified the number of head impacts and risk weighted exposure both on the day of injury and for the season to the date of injury. 43% of concussed athletes had the most severe head impact exposure on the day of injury compared to their matched control group and 46% of concussed athletes had the most severe head impact exposure for the season to the date of injury compared to their matched control group. When accounting for date of injury or season to date of injury, 72% of all concussed athletes had the most or second most severe head impact exposure compared to their matched control group. These trends associating cumulative head impact exposure with concussion onset were stronger for athletes that participated in a greater number of contact activities. For example, 77% of athletes that participated in ten or more days of contact activities had greater head impact exposure than their matched control group. This unique analysis provided further evidence for the role of repetitive head impact exposure as a predisposing factor for the onset of concussion. The clinical implication of these findings supports contemporary trends of limiting head impact exposure for college football athletes during practice activities in an effort to also reduce risk of concussive injury.

Increasing attention has been directed toward identifying aspects of football participation for targeted policy change that reduces the concussion risk. Prior researchers evaluated concussion risks during the preseason and regular seasons, leaving the spring season largely unexplored. In this nationally representative observational investigation of 19 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I collegiate football programs, we assessed concussion rates and head impact exposures during the preseason, regular season, and spring practices from 2014 to 2019. All participating programs recorded the incidence of concussions, and a subset (n = 6) also measured head impact exposures. Analyses by time of year and session type indicated that concussion rates and head impact exposures during all practice sessions and contact practices were higher in the spring and preseason than those in the regular season (P <.05). Concussion rates during the spring season and preseason were statistically similar. We identified comparable concussion risks in the spring season and preseason, highlighting the need for targeted policy interventions to protect athlete health and safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffuse brain injury (DBI) commonly results from blunt impact followed by sudden head rotation, wherein severity is a function of rotational kinematics. A noninvasive in vivo rat model was designed to further investigate this relationship. Due to brain mass differences between rats and humans, rotational acceleration magnitude indicative of rat DBI ([approximately equal to] 350 krad/[s.sup.2]) has been estimated as approximately 60 times greater than that of human DBI ([approximately equal to] krad/[s.sup.2]). Prior experimental testing attempted to use standard transducers such as linear accelerometers to measure loading kinematics. However, such measurement techniques were intrusive to experimental model operation. Therefore, initial studies using this experimental model obtained rotational displacement data from videographic images and implemented a finite difference differentiation (FDD) method to obtain rotational velocity and acceleration. Unfortunately, this method amplified high-frequency, low-amplitude noise, which interfered with signal magnitude representation. Therefore, a coherent average technique was implemented to improve the measurement of rotational kinematics from videographic images, and its results were compared with those of the previous FDD method. Results demonstrated that the coherent method accurately determined a low-pass filter cutoff frequency specific to pulse characteristics. Furthermore, noise interference and signal attenuation were minimized compared with the FDD technique. [DOI: 10.1115/1.3078182] Keywords: biomechanics, coherent average analysis, cerebral concussion, diffuse brain injury, head injury, rat experimental model, rotational kinematics, trauma research