Sensitive and reliable tools are needed to evaluate potential behavioral and cognitive changes following head impact exposure in contact and collision sport participation. We evaluated change in oculomotor testing performance among female, varsity, collegiate athletes following variable exposure to head impacts across a season. Female, collegiate, contact sport (soccer, CONT) and non-contact sport (NON-CONT) athletes were assessed pre-season and post-season. Soccer athletes were grouped according to total season game headers into low dose (≤40 headers; CONT-Low Dose) or high dose (>40 headers; CONT-High Dose) groups. Performance on pro-saccade (reflexive visual response), anti-saccade (executive inhibition), and memory-guided saccade (MGS, spatial working memory) computer-based laboratory tasks were assessed. Primary saccade measures included latency/reaction time, inhibition error rate (anti-saccade only), and spatial accuracy (MGS only). NON-CONT ( n = 20 ) , CONT-Low Dose ( n = 17), and CONT-High Dose ( n = 7) groups significantly differed on pre-season versus post-season latency on tasks with executive functioning demands (anti-saccade and MGS, p ≤ 0.001). Specifically, NON-CONT and CONT-Low Dose demonstrated shorter (i.e., faster) anti-saccade (1.84% and 2.68%, respectively) and MGS (5.74% and 2.76%, respectively) latencies from pre-season to post-season, whereas CONT-High Dose showed 1.40% average longer anti-saccade, and 0.74% shorter MGS, latencies. NON-CONT and CONT-Low Dose demonstrated reduced (i.e., improved) inhibition error rate on the anti-saccade task at post-season versus pre-season, whereas CONT-High Dose demonstrated relative stability ( p = 0.021). The results of this study suggest differential exposure to subconcussive head impacts in collegiate female athletes is associated with differential change in reaction time and inhibitory control performances on executive saccadic oculomotor testing.
Background: Playing sports has many benefits, including boosting physical, cardiovascular, and mental fitness. We tested whether athletic benefits extend to sensory processing—specifically auditory processing—as measured by the frequency-following response (FFR), a scalp-recorded electrophysiological potential that captures neural activity predominately from the auditory midbrain to complex sounds. Hypothesis: Given that FFR amplitude is sensitive to experience, with enrichment enhancing FFRs and injury reducing them, we hypothesized that playing sports is a form of enrichment that results in greater FFR amplitude. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Level of Evidence: Level 3. Methods: We measured FFRs to the speech syllable “da” in 495 student-athletes across 19 Division I teams and 493 age- and sex-matched controls and compared them on 3 measures of FFR amplitude: amplitude of the response, amplitude of the background noise, and the ratio of these 2 measures. Results: Athletes have larger responses to sound than nonathletes, driven by a reduction in their level of background neural noise. Conclusion: These findings suggest that playing sports increases the gain of an auditory signal by turning down the background noise. This mode of enhancement may be tied to the overall fitness level of athletes and/or the heightened need of an athlete to engage with and respond to auditory stimuli during competition. Clinical Relevance: These results motivate athletics overall and engagement in athletic interventions for populations that struggle with sensory processing, such as individuals with language disorders. Also, because head injuries can disrupt these same auditory processes, it is important to consider how auditory processing enhancements may offset injury.
Biology and experience both influence the auditory brain. Sex is one biological factor with pervasive effects on auditory processing. Females process sounds faster and more robustly than males. These differences are linked to hormone differences between the sexes. Athleticism is an experiential factor known to reduce ongoing neural noise, but whether it influences how sounds are processed by the brain is unknown. Furthermore, it is unknown whether sports participation influences auditory processing differently in males and females, given the well-documented sex differences in auditory processing seen in the general population. We hypothesized that athleticism enhances auditory processing and that these enhancements are greater in females. To test these hypotheses, we measured auditory processing in collegiate Division I male and female student-athletes and their non-athlete peers (total n = 1012) using the frequency-following response (FFR). The FFR is a neurophysiological response to sound that reflects the processing of discrete sound features. We measured across-trial consistency of the response in addition to fundamental frequency (F0) and harmonic encoding. We found that athletes had enhanced encoding of the harmonics, which was greatest in the female athletes, and that athletes had more consistent responses than non-athletes. In contrast, F0 encoding was reduced in athletes. The harmonic-encoding advantage in female athletes aligns with previous work linking harmonic encoding strength to female hormone levels and studies showing estrogen as mediating athlete sex differences in other sensory domains. Lastly, persistent deficits in auditory processing from previous concussive and repetitive subconcussive head trauma may underlie the reduced F0 encoding in athletes, as poor F0 encoding is a hallmark of concussion injury.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.