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Differences in Cerebral Blood Flow Regulation in Male and Female Rugby Players with Concussions
Author(s) -
Serrador Jorge,
Reyes Levy,
Tosto Jenna,
Falvo Michael
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.738.14
Subject(s) - concussion , medicine , cerebral blood flow , blood pressure , athletes , physical therapy , cardiology , poison control , injury prevention , emergency medicine
Increasing evidence is suggesting that concussions are a possible significant cause of long term cognitive and health problems among athletes. Despite this increasing evidence, there is a lack of data on the physiological effects of a concussion on cerebral blood flow regulation. The goal of this work was to determine if concussion cause impairment of cerebral blood flow regulation in the first few hours after injury and to determine if there is a sex difference in there sponse. During are creational rugby tournament a total of 91 players were recruited. Of these players, 59 were recruited as controls (12 females) and 34 had suffered a concussion (8 females). All testing was performed on the field to assess cerebral blood flow using Doppler, beat‐by‐beat blood pressure, and end‐tidal CO 2 . Subjects performed three sit to stand. Data was collected 131±23 min following the head trauma. We had previously found that concussed players demonstrated greater mean arterial pressure than controls. Both males and females demonstrated greater mean arterial pressures in the concussed players (Males – Ctrl 91±1 vs mTBI 96±2; Females Ctrl 82±3 vs mTBI 90±3 mmHg, P=0.004), with no effect of sex. In contrast cerebral flow velocity while standing tended to be more severely impacted in the females players (Males – Ctrl 95±1 vs mTBI 95±1; Females Ctrl 96±1 vs mTBI 93±1 %), sex interaction (P=0.081). Despite this greater decrease when standing, baseline internal carotid blood flow when seated was not different between sexes with both demonstration significantly lower flow int eh concussed players(Males – Ctrl 479±31 vs mTBI 361±56; Females Ctrl 426±62 vs mTBI 368±76 mL/min). These data suggest that while both males and females had similar hypertensive responses following a sports related concussion, a tendency towards a greater decrease in cerebral flow when standing was found in the females. Thus further work is necessary to both understand the physiological response following concussion, but specifically with regards to sex differences. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center within the Department of Veteran Affairs.