Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-26-2020
Journal
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Volume
14
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.3389/fnhum.2020.593498
Abstract
White matter tracts are known to be susceptible to injury following concussion. The objective of this study was to determine whether contact play in sport could alter white matter metabolite levels in female varsity athletes independent of changes induced by long-term exercise. Metabolite levels were measured by single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the prefrontal white matter at the beginning (In-Season) and end (Off-Season) of season in contact (N = 54, rugby players) and non-contact (N = 23, swimmers and rowers) varsity athletes. Sedentary women (N = 23) were scanned once, at a time equivalent to the Off-Season time point. Metabolite levels in non-contact athletes did not change over a season of play, or differ from age matched sedentary women except that non-contact athletes had a slightly lower myo-inositol level. The contact athletes had lower levels of myo-inositol and glutamate, and higher levels of glutamine compared to both sedentary women and non-contact athletes. Lower levels of myo-inositol in non-contact athletes compared to sedentary women indicates long-term exercise may alter glial cell profiles in these athletes. The metabolite differences observed between contact and non-contact athletes suggest that non-contact athletes should not be used as controls in studies of concussion in high-impact sports because repetitive impacts from physical contact can alter white matter metabolite level profiles. It is imperative to use athletes engaged in the same contact sport as controls to ensure a matched metabolite profile at baseline.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
© 2020 Schranz, Dekaban, Fischer, Blackney, Barreira, Doherty, Fraser, Brown, Holmes, Menon and Bartha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
This article was originally published as:
Schranz AL, Dekaban GA, Fischer L, Blackney K, Barreira C, Doherty TJ, Fraser DD, Brown A, Holmes J, Menon RS and Bartha R (2020) Brain Metabolite Levels in Sedentary Women and Non-contact Athletes Differ From Contact Athletes. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 14:593498. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.593498