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Active elite rugby participation is associated with altered precentral cortical thickness.

Title: Active elite rugby participation is associated with altered precentral cortical thickness.
Authors: Parker, TD
Zimmerman, KA
Laverse, E
Bourke, NJ
Graham, NSN
Mallas, E-J
Heslegrave, A
Zetterberg, H
Kemp, S
Morris, HR
Sharp, DJ
Item Type: Journal Article
Abstract: There is growing concern that elite rugby participation may negatively influence brain health, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Cortical thickness is a widely applied biomarker of grey matter structure, but there is limited research into how it may be altered in active professional rugby players. Cross-sectional MRI data from 44 active elite rugby players, including 21 assessed within 1 week of head injury, and 47 healthy controls were analysed. We investigated how active elite rugby participation with and without sub-acute traumatic brain injury influenced grey matter structure using whole cortex and region of interest cortical thickness analyses. Relationships between cortical thickness and biomarkers of traumatic brain injury, including fractional anisotropy, plasma neurofilament light and glial fibrillary acidic protein, were also examined. In whole-cortex analyses, precentral cortical thickness in the right hemisphere was lower in rugby players compared with controls, which was due to reductions in non-injured players. Post hoc region of interest analyses showed non-injured rugby players had reduced cortical thickness in the inferior precentral sulcal thickness bilaterally (P = 0.005) and the left central sulcus (P = 0.037) relative to controls. In contrast, players in the sub-acute phase of mild traumatic brain injury had higher inferior precentral sulcal cortical thickness in the right hemisphere (P = 0.015). Plasma glial fibrillary acidic protein, a marker of astrocyte activation, was positively associated with right inferior precentral sulcal cortical thickness in injured rugby players (P = 0.0012). Elite rugby participation is associated with localized alterations in cortical thickness, specifically in sulcal motor regions. Sub-acute changes after mild traumatic brain injury are associated with evidence of astrocytic activation. The combination of cortical thickness and glial fibrillary acidic protein may be useful in understanding the pathophysiological relationship between sporting head injury and brain health.
Issue Date: 2023
Date of Acceptance: 4-Oct-2023
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/107975
DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcad257
Start Page: fcad257
Journal / Book Title: Brain Commun
Volume: 5
Issue: 6
Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Sponsor/Funder: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust- BRC Funding
Drake Foundation
UK DRI Ltd
Funder's Grant Number: RDC04
Reference: 525360
DRI-CORE2020-CRT
Keywords: GFAP
MRI
cortical thickness
head injury
rugby
Publication Status: Published online
Conference Place: England
Appears in Collections:Department of Brain Sciences



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