Effects of smaller head impacts on young athletes studied with B.C.-made brain scanner

New technology allowing the assessment of head impacts at rink- or field-side could open the door to new concussion treatments and safer sport, according to a group of B.C. and U.S. researchers.

It’s part of the findings of a new study published in the journal Brain Communication involving teams from Simon Fraser University and the Mayo Clinic, which sheds new light on the cumulative impact of repeated, smaller sub-concussive injuries that don’t produce immediate symptoms.

Researchers fitted junior A (aged 16-20) and bantam (aged 14 and under) minor hockey players’ helmets with sensors to measure impact and took brain wave readings at rink side over the course of a season.

Researchers then compared that data, allowing them both to track sensitive, smaller changes in brain activity and to rule out other potential causes.

“The major advance in this research is around changing the way we look at concussion as a one time event that may or may not be serious, and actually focusing on athletes that didn’t get concussed, but (where) the physical contact of the game over the course of a season caused what we call sub-concussive impacts,” SFU neuroscientist and study collaborator Dr. Dr. Ryan D’Arcy said.

1:37 Hockey Alberta ramps up concussion education

“We looked at the difference between the beginning of a hockey season and the end of a hockey season, we could detect impairment in their cognitive processing by measuring their brain waves.”

The data showed a “clear and very strong” relationship between the number of impacts a player took and their cognitive functioning, D’Arcy said.

The data was gathered with a portable brain-scanning device called the NeuroCatch, developed by a Surrey, B.C. company, D’Arcy heads.

Get weekly health news

Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.

Sign up for weekly health newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

The device, which received Health Canada approval in 2019, is essentially a hood or cap with sensors allowing it to record and quickly report electroencephalograph data.

D’Arcy described the tool as a key innovation in concussion research, allowing medical professionals to perform sensitive and objective measurement of changes in the brain where athletes are, not at a clinic.

“We have to focus on managing the accumulation of sub-concussive or concussive impacts, and coming up with ways not only to manage it but to treat it,” D’Arcy said.

“Actually it’s a very optimistic study because those ways are coming, and so we’ll be able to start measuring which ones work, and allow our athletes to feel safe.”