As participation in women's soccer continues to grow and the longevity of female athletes' careers continues to increase, prevention and care for mTBI in women's soccer has become a major concern for female athletes since the long-term risks associated with a history of mTBI are well documented. Among women's sports, soccer exhibits among the highest concussion rates, on par with those of men's football at the collegiate level. Head impact monitoring technology has revealed that "concussive hits" occurring directly before symptomatic injury are not predictive of mTBI, suggesting that the cumulative effect of repetitive head impacts experienced by collision sport athletes should be assessed. Neuroimaging biomarkers have proven to be valuable in detecting brain changes that occur before neurocognitive symptoms in collision sport athletes. Quantifying the relationship between changes in these biomarkers and head impacts experienced by female soccer athletes may prove valuable to developing preventative measures for mTBI. This study paired functional magnetic resonance imaging with head impact monitoring to track cerebrovascular reactivity changes throughout a season and to test whether the observed changes could be attributed to mechanical loading experienced by female athletes participating in high school soccer. Marked cerebrovascular reactivity changes were observed in female soccer athletes, relative both to non-collision sport control measures and pre-season measures and were localized to fronto-temporal aspects of the brain. These changes persisted 4-5 months after the season ended and recovered by 8 months after the season. Segregation of the total soccer cohort into cumulative loading groups revealed that population-level changes were driven by athletes experiencing high cumulative loads, although athletes experiencing lower cumulative loads still contributed to group changes. The results of this study imply a non-linear relationship between cumulative loading and cerebrovascular changes with a threshold, above which the risk, of injury likely increases significantly.

Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) is impaired following brain injury, increasing susceptibility to subsequent injury. CVR was tracked in football and non-collision athletes throughout one season. CVR transiently decreased in football athletes during the first half of the season. Results indicate the brain adapts slowly to increases in loading, increasing risk for injury.

Accumulation of high magnitude acceleration events predicts cerebrovascular reactivity changes in female high school soccer athletes. Brain imaging and behavior, 1-11.

Neurogenic stunned myocardium is widely reported in the adult literature and is typically associated with subarachnoid hemorrhage. We present a case of neurogenic stunned myocardium and transient severe tricuspid regurgitation in a 7-month-old infant following nonaccidental head trauma.