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Int J Sports Med 2023; 44(12): 896-905
DOI: 10.1055/a-2091-4860
Clinical Sciences

Relaxed Alert Electroencephalography Screening for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Athletes

Samah Abdul Baki
1   Clinical BioSignal Group Corp., Acton, Massachusetts, United States
,
Zohreh Zakeri
2   Department of Engineering, Nottingham Trent University School of Science and Technology, Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
,
Geetha Chari
3   Pediatric Neurology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, New York City, United States
,
André Fenton
4   Center for Neural Science, NYU, New York, United States
,
Ahmet Omurtag
2   Department of Engineering, Nottingham Trent University School of Science and Technology, Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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Abstract

Due to the mildness of initial injury, many athletes with recurrent mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are misdiagnosed with other neuropsychiatric illnesses. This study was designed as a proof-of-principle feasibility trial for athletic trainers at a sports facility to generate electroencephalograms (EEGs) from student athletes for discriminating (mTBI) associated EEGs from uninjured ones. A total of 47 EEGs were generated, with 30 athletes recruited at baseline (BL) pre-season, after a concussive injury (IN), and post-season (PS). Outcomes included: 1) visual analyses of EEGs by a neurologist; 2) support vector machine (SVM) classification for inferences about whether particular groups belonged to the three subgroups of BL, IN, or PS; and 3) analyses of EEG synchronies including phase locking value (PLV) computed between pairs of distinct electrodes. All EEGs were visually interpreted as normal. SVM classification showed that BL and IN could be discriminated with 81% accuracy using features of EEG synchronies combined. Frontal inter-hemispheric phase synchronization measured by PLV was significantly lower in the IN group. It is feasible for athletic trainers to record high quality EEGs from student athletes. Also, spatially localized metrics of EEG synchrony can discriminate mTBI associated EEGs from control EEGs.

Key words

mild traumatic brain injury - EEG - phase locking value


Publication History

Received: 28 November 2023

Accepted: 10 May 2023

Accepted Manuscript online:
10 May 2023

Article published online:
25 July 2023

© 2023. Thieme. All rights reserved.

Georg Thieme Verlag
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

 

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