A jugular vein compression collar prevents alterations of endogenous electrocortical dynamics following blast exposure during special weapons and tactical (SWAT) breacher training

Abstract

Exposure to explosive blasts places one at risk for traumatic brain injury, especially for special weapons and tactics (SWAT) and military personnel, who may be repeatedly exposed to blasts. In the current study, the effectiveness of a jugular vein compression collar to prevent alterations in resting-state electrocortical activity following a single-SWAT breacher training session was investigated. SWAT team personnel were randomly assigned to wear a compression collar during breacher training and resting state electroencephalography (EEG) was measured within 2 days prior to and two after breacher training. It was hypothesized that significant changes in brain dynamics-indicative of possible underlying neurodegenerative processes-would follow blast exposure for those who did not wear the collar, with ameliorated changes for the collar-wearing group. Using recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) it was found that participants who did not wear the collar displayed longer periods of laminar electrocortical behavior (as indexed by RQA's vertical max line measure) after breacher training. It is proposed that the blast wave exposure for the no-collar group may have reduced the number of pathways, via axonal disruption-for electrical transmission-resulting in the EEG signals becoming trapped in laminar states for longer periods of time. Longer laminar states have been associated with other electrocortical pathologies, such as seizure, and may be important for understanding head trauma and recovery.

Youth With Concussion Have Less Adaptable Gait Patterns Than Their Uninjured Peers: Implications for Concussion Management

“…3,26,39 Cross-recurrence plot construction depends on several parameters that influence plot organization and structure (FIGURE 2). 45 We used a variable radius value to ensure each recurrence plot maintained a fixed recurrence rate of 5.0%, 4,40 to prevent oversaturation of plots with recurrent points that may influence the dependent measures derived from the plot. 41 We determined individualized delay and embedding dimension due to individual stride length and timing variations.…”

“…Vertical lines indicate how often the signals exhibit laminar behavior-a type of behavior where the signals become "stuck." 4,30 Trapping time is equivalent to average diagonal-line length but applies to the average length of recurrent points that make up vertical Recurrent points are spread out more for the control participant, and the participant with concussion has recurrent points grouped more closely together. (B) Entire corresponding cross-recurrence quantification analysis plots for each pair of foot acceleration data for the control participant (left) and the participant with concussion (right).…”

Electrocortical dynamics differentiate athletes exhibiting low‐ and high‐ ACL injury risk biomechanics

“…As just discussed, reduced deterministic behavior (or too much stochastic activity) may reflect the inability to maintain a stable behavioral state (Kiefer & Myer, ; Stergiou & Decker, ; Stergiou, Harbourne, & Cavanaugh, ).Moreover, the presence of excessively deterministic (i.e., rigid) electrocortical behavior during resting state may indicate an inability to react to external stimuli and functional demands (Kiefer & Myer, ). Previous applications of RQA to analyze EEG data have revealed that the spatiotemporal dynamics of electrocortical activity can distinguish physiological states that characterize conditions such as multiple sclerosis (Carrubba, Minagar, Chesson, Frilot, & Marino, ), exposure to explosive blasts (Bonnette et al, ), epilepsy (Thomasson, Hoeppner, Webber, & Zbilut, ; Zhang, Worrell, & He, ), anesthesia (Nicolaou & Georgiou, ), sleep stages (Song, Lee, & Kim, ), and states of consciousness (Becker et al, ). In the present study, we applied RQA to identify the patterns of electrocortical dynamics that related to high‐risk movement biomechanics.…”

“…One method used to index the spatiotemporal dynamics of EEG activity is recurrence quantification analysis (RQA; Eckmann, Kamphorst, & Ruelle, ; Marwan, Romano, Thiel, & Kurths, ; Webber & Zbilut, , ; Zbilut & Webber, )). RQA is able to quantify the temporal dynamics of electrocortical activity (Bonnette et al, ; Rizzi, Frigerio, & Iori, ; Rizzi, Weissberg, Milikovsky, & Friedman, ) and is a commonly utilized method to analyze the inherently noisy data such as EEG time series (Romano, Thiel, Kurths, Kiss, & Hudson, ). Specifically, it is able to quantify the relative degree of determinism, or regularity (i.e., predictability), of a time series (see Table for a brief description of dependent measures returned by RQA and Table for helpful terms related to the analysis itself).The degree of determinism in a system's behavior is thought to reflect the ability of the system (in this case the CNS) to organize coherent, functional behavior.…”

The effects of internal jugular vein compression for modulating and preserving white matter following a season of American tackle football: A prospective longitudinal evaluation of differential head impact exposure

“…Animal research has demonstrated that internal jugular vein compression (JVC) can increase cerebral vascular blood volume and thus minimize the effects of head impacts on brain injury (Mannix et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2011; Turner et al., 2012). In humans, JVC—using a neck “collar” that applies mild bilateral pressure to the internal jugular vein—is similarly theorized to increase cerebral venous engorgement, mitigate brain slosh, and has been successfully used in a series of preliminary longitudinal human clinical trials (Bonnette et al., 2018; Myer et al, 2018; Myer, Yuan, Barber Foss, Smith, et al., 2016; Myer, Yuan, Barber Foss, Thomas, et al., 2016; Yuan, Barber Foss, et al., 2018; Yuan, Dudley, et al., 2018; Yuan et al., 2017). Previous studies of the JVC neck collar have used tract‐based spatial statistics (TBSS; Smith et al., 2006) to quantify alterations in DTI‐derived diffusion and anisotropic properties of white matter, and found athletes who wore the collar during competitive play showed significantly fewer pre‐ to postseason changes compared to non‐collar wearing athletes despite comparable levels of head impact exposure (Myer et al, 2018; Myer, Yuan, Barber Foss, Smith, et al., 2016; Myer, Yuan, Barber Foss, Thomas, et al., 2016; Yuan, Barber Foss, et al., 2018).…”