Neural Injury in Adolescents With Concussion

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Acute Brain Injury; Mild Traumatic Brain Injury; Concussion, Mild

Treatments: Device: MRI; Behavioral: Neuropsychology assessment; Device: MEG

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03011983

16-013207

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study utilizes multimodal brain imaging to obtain quantitative biomarkers of brain injury and to improve understanding of the biological basis of brain pathology in adolescents with concussion. Adolescents with a concussion will undergo neuroimaging and neuropsychology assessments acutely and four months after injury.

Full description

Concussion is a highly prevalent condition in adolescence, but it remains a clinical diagnosis that largely relies on subjective patient report with no reliable objective biomarkers for diagnosis. Traditional clinical brain imaging has not been found useful for concussion as the pathology is generally not visible on conventional acute MRI or CT. The proposed study addresses this gap in concussion diagnosis and management by examining the sensitivity of magnetoencephalography (MEG) for identifying areas of brain injury through detection of abnormal neural activity (slowing) in adolescents with concussion compared to healthy controls. Adolescents with a concussion will complete neuroimaging (MEG and MRI) and neuropsychology assessments at two time points within ten days and then again 4 months post-injury. Healthy controls will complete neuroimaging and neuropsychology assessments at a single time point.

Enrollment: 4 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 17 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of concussion and within 2 weeks of injury (case subjects)
• No history of diagnosed concussion (control subjects)

Exclusion criteria

• Head injury within 1 year of recent concussion (case subjects)
• History of neurologic, psychiatric, developmental or learning disorders (all subjects)

Trial design

4 participants in 2 patient groups

Adolescents With Concussion

Description:

Adolescents with a concussion (n=120) will undergo neuroimaging (MEG and MRI) and neuropsychology assessments at two time points in the acute and chronic periods after injury, respectively. Brain imaging injury measures will be compared to a control normative database we will create. These brain measures will also be associated with cognitive and clinical outcomes.

Treatment:

Device: MEG

Behavioral: Neuropsychology assessment

Device: MRI

Adolescents Without Concussion

Description:

Age- and gender-matched healthy controls (n=160) will be recruited to establish a normative database of whole-brain slow-wave maps from MEG resting-state data as well as white-matter diffusion measures from MRI.

Treatment:

Device: MEG

Behavioral: Neuropsychology assessment

Device: MRI