UNM unveils concussion study

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Researchers from UNM and a nonprofit organization are striving to better understand and prevent concussions in student athletes.
The University and Mind Research Network (MRN) are collaborating on Brain Safe, a project that seeks to discover and prevent the effects of concussions in athletes.

According to a press release, Brain Safe aims “to study and minimize the impact of brain injury on (National Collegiate Athletic Association) athletes in contact sports.” More than 200 athletes from UNM will receive MRI scans to study “brain structure, chemistry, connectivity and function at the beginning of every season,” according to the release.

UNM President Robert Frank, who ran a brain injury treatment program when he was a faculty member at the University of Missouri, said he supported the project because it would help protect athletes from the less noticeable effects of concussions.

“I’m really pleased they’re looking at this area because concussion is such a subtle thing,” he said. “Concussion has an additive effect, so each one of these concussions has additional effects, and by screening these athletes from a baseline and looking at them, we can ensure that none of our athletes have sustaining effects of doing something they love.”

According to the press release, researchers would take MRI scans of athletes involved in the study every year or after an “acute injury.” They will compare these MRI scans against the baseline scan.

At a Board of Regents meeting on Oct. 8, the regents approved funding to support the project for three years.

Frank said the study is important because college students don’t generally realize the long-term effects of multiple head injuries.

“The trouble is young people … never imagine that anything is going to be permanent,” he said. “You think you’ll shake off everything because your bodies are young and recover quickly. But the problem is brain injuries, concussions. The first doesn’t do it, the second one starts to add. By the third one, you start to get permanent injuries.”

Kent Kiehl, director of the Brain Safe project, said the innovation of the Brain Safe project stems from the baseline scan.
“When you work with the athletes, you have a complete, comprehensive assessment of their brains … before they start playing,” he said. “Having that baseline is essential because concussions usually don’t show up on an MRI scan afterwards.”

Kiehl said the advanced MRIs used at the MRN are noninvasive, and they are not potentially cancer-causing.

“We could’ve done other testing,” he said. “That would have involved CT scans, which are x-rays, but we’re not doing any of that because that would have involved exposure to radiation.”

The study focuses proportionally on both men’s and women’s sports, Kiehl said. Athletes involved in the study participate in men’s and women’s basketball, soccer, football and volleyball, he said.
“Women in sports have just as many problems per capita … with concussion,” he said. “Those sports are the ones that are at highest risk for sports-related concussions. Eventually we might be able to offer it to all athletes participating in a sport.”

Kiehl said this study differs from others done by other universities because of the number of athletes participating.

“There are no other universities that are doing it on this scale,” he said. “There are a couple of small studies that have been done around the country with maybe 20 athletes. But none have been done on this scale, and none have made it a benefit of participating in sports.”

While the NCAA requires basic neuropsychological testing, Kiehl said the tests aren’t very sensitive to traumatic brain injury caused by concussions.

Kiehl said the projects costs about $1 million a year to maintain, but UNM is splitting the cost with the MRN. He said he hopes to make this program an enduring fixture at UNM.

“The initial concessions were to do it for three years,” he said. “My goal is that it’s a permanent feature for participation in athletics here.”