Advanced magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological assessment for detecting brain injury in a prospective cohort of university amateur boxers
Advanced magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological assessment for detecting brain injury in a prospective cohort of university amateur boxers
Blog Article
Background/aim: The safety of amateur and professional boxing is a contentious issue.We hypothesised that advanced magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological testing could provide evidence of acute and early brain injury in amateur boxers.Methods: We recruited 30 participants from a university amateur boxing club in a prospective cohort study.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropsychological testing was performed at three time points: prior to starting training; within 48h following a first major competition to detect acute brain injury; and Immobilizers one year follow-up.A single MRI acquisition was made from control participants.Imaging analysis included cortical thickness measurements with Advanced Normalization Tools (ANTS) and FreeSurfer, voxel based morphometry (VBM), and Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS).
A computerized battery of neuropsychological tests was performed assessing attention, learning, memory and impulsivity.Results: During the study Western Girths period, one boxer developed seizures controlled with medication while another developed a chronic subdural hematoma requiring neurosurgical drainage.A total of 10 boxers contributed data at to the longitudinal assessment protocol.
Reasons for withdrawal were: logistics (10), stopping boxing (7), withdrawal of consent (2), and development of a chronic subdural hematoma (1).No significant changes were detected using VBM, TBSS, cortical thickness measured with FreeSurfer or ANTS, either cross-sectionally at baseline, or longitudinally.Neuropsychological assessment of boxers found attention/concentration improved over time while planning and problem solving ability latency decreased after a bout but recovered after one year.
Conclusion: While this neuroimaging and neuropsychological assessment protocol could not detect any evidence of brain injury, one boxer developed seizures and another developed a chronic sub-dural haematoma.Keywords: Boxing, Neuroimaging, Brain structure, CANTAB.