This prospective controlled observational cohort study assessed the performance of a novel panel of serum microRNA (miRNA) biomarkers on indicators of concussion, subconcussive impacts, and neurocognitive function in collegiate football players over the playing season. Male collegiate student football athletes participating in a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) were enrolled. There were a total of 53 participants included in the study, 30 non-athlete control subjects and 23 male collegiate student football athletes. Neurocognitive assessments and blood samples were taken within the week before the athletic season began and within the week after the last game of the season and measured for a panel of pre-selected miRNA biomarkers. All the athletes had elevated levels of circulating miRNAs at the beginning of the season compared with control subjects (p < 0.001). Athletes with the lowest standard assessment of concussion (SAC) scores at the beginning of the season had the highest levels of miRNAs. The area under the curve (AUC) for predicting pre-season SAC scores were miR-195 (0.90), miR-20a (0.89), miR-151-5p (0.86), miR-505* (0.85), miR-9-3p (0.77), and miR-362-3p (0.76). In athletes with declining neurocognitive function over the season, concentrations of miRNAs increased over same period. There were significant negative correlations with miR-505* (p = 0.011), miR-30d (p = 0.007), miR-92 (p = 0.033), and (p = 0.008). The miRNAs correlating with balance problems were miR-505* (p = 0.007), miR-30d (p = 0.028), and miR-151-5p (p = 0.023). Those correlating with poor reaction times were miR-20a (0.043), miR-505* (p = 0.049), miR-30d (p = 0.031), miR-92 (p = 0.015), and miR-151-5p (p = 0.044). Select miRNAs were associated with baseline concussion assessments at the beginning of the season and with neurocognitive changes from pre to post-season in collegiate football players. Should these findings be replicated in a larger cohort of athletes, these markers could potentially serve as measures of neurocognitive status in athletes at risk for concussion and subconcussive injuries.

It is commonly believed that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) movement is facilitated by blood vessel wall movements (i.e., hemodynamic oscillations) in the brain. A coherent pattern of low frequency hemodynamic oscillations and CSF movement was recently found during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep via functional MRI. This finding raises other fundamental questions: 1) the explanation of coupling between hemodynamic oscillations and CSF movement from fMRI signals; 2) the existence of the coupling during wakefulness; 3) the direction of CSF movement. In this resting state fMRI study, we proposed a mechanical model to explain the coupling between hemodynamics and CSF movement through the lens of fMRI. Time delays between CSF movement and global hemodynamics were calculated. The observed delays between hemodynamics and CSF movement match those predicted by the model. Moreover, by conducting separate fMRI scans of the brain and neck, we confirmed the low frequency CSF movement at the fourth ventricle is bidirectional. Our finding also demonstrates that CSF movement is facilitated by changes in cerebral blood volume mainly in the low frequency range, even when the individual is awake.

Recent work suggests that subconcussive head impacts may contribute to long-term neurodegeneration; however, the risk thresholds are unknown. It was hypothesized that the number of head impacts could quantify the risk of developing abnormal neurophysiology. Twenty-one high school boys (ages 14 to 18) were evaluated over the course of 1 football season. A combination of the ImPACT, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and helmet telemetry was used. The number of head impacts throughout the football season was subsequently compared with the fraction of players fl agged by either the ImPACT or fMRI. A minimum of 1 ImPACT score was fl agged for 54.5% of asymptomatic participants, and 72.7% were fl agged by fMRI. Seven assessments were fl agged by both. Larger num-bers of hits corresponded with a larger fraction of players being fl agged. A substantial number of asymptomatic athletes exhibit neurophysiological changes in-season. The number of head impacts was a risk factor for the development of neurophysiological changes.

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Prior studies investigating cortical processing in Deaf signers suggest that life-long experience with sign language and/or auditory deprivation may alter the brain’s anatomical structure and the function of brain regions typically recruited for auditory processing (Emmorey et al., 2010; Pénicaud, et al., 2012 inter alia). We report the first investigation of the task-negative network in Deaf signers and its functional connectivity – the temporal correlations among spatially remote neurophysiological events. We show that Deaf signers manifest increased functional connectivity between posterior cingulate/precuneus and left medial temporal gyrus (MTG), but also inferior parietal lobe and medial temporal gyrus in the right hemisphere- areas that have been found to show functional recruitment specifically during sign language processing. These findings suggest that the organization of the brain at the level of inter-network connectivity is likely affected by experience with processing visual language, although sensory deprivation could be another source of the difference. We hypothesize that connectivity alterations in the task negative network reflect predictive/automatized processing of the visual signal.

Transcriptomics, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and a virtual reality (VR) based spatial motor task were integrated using mediation analysis in a novel demonstration of “imaging omics”. Data collected in NCAA Division I football athletes cleared for play before in-season training showed significant relationships in a) elevated levels of miR-30d and miR-92a to elevated putamen rCBF, (b) elevated putamen rCBF to compromised balance scores, and (c) compromised balance scores to elevated miRNA levels. rCBF acted as a consistent mediator variable (Sobel’s test p &lt; 0.05) between abnormal miRNA levels and compromised balance scores. Given the involvement of these miRNAs in inflammation and immune function, and that vascular perfusion is a component of the inflammatory response, these findings support a chronic inflammatory model in these athletes with 11 years of average football exposure. rCBF, a systems biology measure, was necessary for miRNA to affect behavior.

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Transformed or vocoded acoustic signals paralleling the processing of cochlear implants have proven extremely useful for simulating aural perception in deaf CI users with normal hearing participants. The benefits of current perceptual studies with vocoded stimuli are limited, however, in their ecological validity and direct applicability to the everyday challenges faced by CI users. Normal hearing subjects listen for relatively short periods of time to isolated, prerecorded words or sentences; therefore, their perceptual learning occurs without the semantic context, visual support, and conversational interplay that normally accompanies spoken language use. In this paper, the development of a new device, which enables vocoded speech research to overcome many of these limitations, is described. This technology carries out vocoding signal transformations in real-time, with very short delays, and is small enough to fit in a participant’s pocket. The portable, real-time vocoder (PRTV) therefore allows subjects to experience vocoded acoustics while freely interacting with their environment and the people in it, potentially for extended periods of time. Preliminary investigation of perceptual learning with the PRTV has demonstrated its efficacy: improvements of up to 15% in open-set word recognition accuracy were found in 3 NH listeners after 1.5 h of interactive use.