The persistent influence of concussive injuries on cognitive control and neuroelectric function

Abstract

Context: Increasing attention is being paid to the deleterious effects of sport-related concussion on cognitive and brain health.

Objective: To evaluate the influence of concussion incurred during early life on the cognitive control and neuroelectric function of young adults.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Research laboratory.

Patients or other participants: Forty young adults were separated into groups according to concussive history (0 or 1+). Participants incurred all injuries during sport and recreation before the age of 18 years and were an average of 7.1 ± 4.0 years from injury at the time of the study.

Intervention(s): All participants completed a 3-stimulus oddball task, a numeric switch task, and a modified flanker task during which event-related potentials and behavioral measures were collected.

Main outcome measure(s): Reaction time, response accuracy, and electroencephalographic activity.

Results: Compared with control participants, the concussion group exhibited decreased P3 amplitude during target detection within the oddball task and during the heterogeneous condition of the switch task. The concussion group also displayed increased N2 amplitude during the heterogeneous version of the switch task. Concussion history was associated with response accuracy during the flanker task.

Conclusions: People with a history of concussion may demonstrate persistent decrements in neurocognitive function, as evidenced by decreased response accuracy, deficits in the allocation of attentional resources, and increased stimulus-response conflict during tasks requiring variable amounts of cognitive control. Neuroelectric measures of cognitive control may be uniquely sensitive to the persistent and selective decrements of concussion.

Figure 1.

Response time and accuracy for the concussion (black bars) and control (gray bars) groups for all conditions of the flanker task. ^a Indicates statistical significance (P < .05).

Figure 2.

The P3 amplitudes for the concussion (gray lines) and control (black lines) groups at the Fz, Cz, and Pz sites for the target trials of the oddball task.

Figure 3.

The N2 and P3 amplitudes for the concussion (gray lines) and control (black lines) groups at the Fz, FCz, Cz, CPz, and Pz sites for the heterogeneous condition of the switch task. Nonswitch (solid lines) and switch (dashed lines) refer to the various conditions of the heterogeneous task.