Concussions have finally been recognized as a serious injury to major sports corporations such as the National Football League. While it is great that they have recognized the gravity of a concussion and its repercussions the ability to properly detect concussions and know how long to wait before sending a player back onto the field or the ice is still difficult to define.
Scientists have begun to discover a way to detect severity of concussions by using blood tests. According to studies, when someone hits their head hard enough, axons that extend from neurons in the brain can be damaged. This can cause the proteins contained to leak out into the blood stream. A company in Massachusetts has developed a product called Quanterix that allows them to measure the proteins in the blood stream. They conducted a study with 46 college athletes and 36 healthy controls and measured for a specific protein called Tau. This Tau protein was found to be exponentially high in Olympic boxer's blood. They found that the athletes that had sustained a concussion had longer lasting affects than those who had not.
THrough this experiment scientists have now developed a product that can detect small biomarkers in the brain and blood stream for proteins that should not be where they are. THis can help in order to determine how much damage the brain has taken and how long it will take for the player to properly recover.
The result in the article is statements by a doctor involved in the concussion projects that makes the point that rather than learning how to better detect concussions we should be better protecting people so that we can prevent concussions in the first place.
As an athlete myself, playing football since I was six years old and a professional waterskier, I understand the pain a concussion brings. I myself have taken 4 concussions. I have seen one of my best friends in college football be forced to lose his scholarship because he could no longer play due to the number of concussions he had sustained. This is a topic that has been around me my entire life and I found it very pleasing and comforting to know that their are studies to properly evaluate these head injuries. While I understand it is always good to prevent rather than repair, you will never make people give up sports, so we must find ways to just make them a bit safer.
Reference: (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/simple-blood-tests-for-rapid-concussion-diagnosis/)
Thanks for posting this! It was definitely an interesting read for me; I've also had a concussion, though I don't think they would have been necessary to run the test on me. Mine was obvious, since I broke my skull and was in and out of consciousness for some time. This simple test will really help the medical field for anyone suspected to have one. The recovery from my concussion was really long, and I still feel at times it has some small effect on me, years after it occurred. If they can give a better ballpark on recovery time from a concussion, would they repeat testing until results came out negative before allowing the athlete back into their sport? JR
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting this blog post! I have had quite a few concussions and it was very interesting to learn more on how they really affect the brain and the different chemicals and neurotransmitters that play a part in having a concussion. I just wanted a little bit of clarification on the Tau protein? I was just wondering if you could give me a little more information on what exactly the makeup of the protein is and the affect that it has on the brain during the period that a person suffers from a concussion. Just a little more detail would be great. Thank you! KT
ReplyDeleteAfter doing some research I found that the structure of the tau protein does not have secondary structures. This protein is, as stated in an article, "natively unfolded". Tau proteins function to maintain the structure of microtubules in neurons. So since the neuronal axons get damaged during a hard hit in the head, then that disrupts microtubules which then release the tau proteins that were holding them. These tau proteins then travel in the blood. I could not find anything that indicates that tau proteins affect the body in some way when they are not in the neurons.
Delete-Tanee
Due to the fact that I am going into the medical field I found this article on concussions interesting. I also have personal experiences related to participation in sports.
ReplyDeleteThroughout High School I participated in sports. Football and Wrestling are both contact sports. I remember that players would get hit hard, the coach would pull them out, wait a little while, and then put them right back in the game. Winning "THE GAME" was the most important! During State Wrestling my brother landed on his head and he could hardly stand up. The coach sent him right back in! BE TOUGH! He ended up in the emergency room.
Now, there are better rules related to High School and College Sports. However, it would be a huge advantage to be able to have a blood test and determine how much damage the brain has taken and how long it will take for the player to properly recover.
JH
This was an amazing article for me to read,very interesting topic. i too have had concussions and know how painful an frustrating they can be. it is really reassuring that this type of brain injury is starting to be recognized and serious action is taking place to prevent long term damage in high school, college and professional athletes. my question that i pose is this: What is the Tau protein? what is its function, why is it's location so important? this article has reminded me of the movie Concussion and reiterates how serious these brain injuries can be.
ReplyDeleteBB
That is a great question regarding this very informational post about concussions. With the knowledge that i have gained through classes i have taken and the research I have done, I have an answer to your question. Tau proteins are abundant in the nerve cells of the brain, more specifically in the axon, and the main function of this protein is to stabilize the microtubules. Tau protein keep the nerve cells in your brain together and "tie" everything together, helping various parts of your brain communicate with each other. When a concussion or other type of brain injury occurs, it knocks these tau proteins loose, causing them to float around and make their function defective. Without these microtubules being correctly stabilized pathologies of the nervous system occur causing more severe consequences, such as Alzheimers. It is important to keep these tau proteins in place because we don't want severe medical consequences occuring. Concussion prevention is very important, the more concussions you get, the more these tau proteins are getting knocked out of place causing awful diseases among the brain.
Delete-TK