Neuroimaging of Vestibular and Oculomotor Function in Healthy Athletes & Athletes with Concussion

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Sydney Lacy

Abstract or Description

An estimated 1.6 to 3.6 million sports-related concussions (SRC) occur annually in the United States, with approximately 60% experiencing vestibular and/or oculomotor symptoms. Athletes with SRC often experience a myriad of symptoms, and the two most notable areas of symptomatology involve vestibular and oculomotor systems. Independently and collaboratively, these systems support our ability to use information from the environment efficiently and make decisions automatically. Therefore, damage to and dysfunction within the vestibular and oculomotor systems negatively affect athletic performance. To assess athletes with SRC, the vestibular oculomotor screening (VOMS), is often employed and uses triggering stimuli to provoke and quantify symptoms. The reliability and validity of the VOMS tool have been established, however, its combination with neuroimaging techniques such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been unexplored. We hope to answer two questions: 1) what regions of interest are active during VOMS tasks and 2) does symptomology influence regional activation? In this study, we have developed a paradigm to combine fNIRS and VOMS to explore the neural underpinnings of vestibular and oculomotor dysfunction following an SRC. A 34-channel fNIRS cap was created to measure oxygenated hemoglobin during VOMS tasks in four regions of cortex: the viso-motor cortex, front eye fields, primary visual cortex, and the supramarginal gyrus. Given previous research indicating that symptomatic individuals have increased cerebral blood flow, we hypothesize that athletes who are symptomatic will elicit greater levels of neural activation in our proposed regions of interest compared to asymptomatic individuals and controls. If the data supports our anticipated results, we will then have a way to describe the neural underpinnings of the vestibular and oculomotor systems following an SRC and most importantly we will have an objective neuronal signature of symptomology.

Mentor

Dr. Jaclyn Stephens