Investigating Salivary Biomarkers of Concussions in High School Football Players Grant uri icon

abstract

  • In high school sports, clinical evaluations of athletes who have sustained a head injury with the potential to result in concussion are assessed by a standardized head injury assessment (HIA) protocol (Zetterberg et al. 2019). This provides an excellent setting in which to examine biomarkers of concussion and clinical outcomes.

    In this project, we will assess biomarkers from saliva. Specifically, small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) have been shown to be good candidates as salivary biomarkers of sport-related concussion in athletes (Di Pietro et al. 2021; Di Pietro et al. 2017; Hicks et al. 2018; Hicks et al. 2020; Pinchi et al. 2020).

    In addition, five MicroRNAs (miRNAs), also in the class of small non-coding RNAs, were found to demonstrate high classification accuracy of concussion symptoms, miR-320c-1, miR-133a-5p, miR-769-5p, let-7a-3p, and miR-1307-3p. One single miRNA, let-7f-5p, was able to differentiate between injured and non-injured athletes during a 36- to 48-hr time range post-concussion. The miR-155 family was shown to influence TBI-related processes such as blood-brain barrier disruption, neuroinflammation, and neurodegenerative disease. (Porteny et al. 2022)

    Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology (Behjati and Tarpey 2013) can be used to identify the sncRNAs that vary with traumatic brain injury (TBI) severity and that can be found in saliva. HIA in high school sports may benefit from use of saliva to identify and quantify these biomarkers.

    This project will use these techniques and build on research that examines changes in salivary biomarkers that occur subsequent to a sport related concussion (SRC) as well as during the healing process as the neurologic system recovers. We intend to contribute to this knowledge base, specifically investigating whether and how salivary biomarkers are present in high school aged individuals who sustain an SRC.

    Important markers of acute brain trauma that reflect the metabolic cascade that results after a concussion occurs can be found in a variety of fluids, including saliva (Zetterberg et al. 2019). As a physiologic marker, saliva may provide a simple, objective tool to help track changes in key biomarkers that may help supplement the current HIA protocol used to indicate a concussion has occurred as well as aid in the assessment of an athlete's recovery status for resuming full active participation in sports. Saliva collection can be performed in the field by athletic training staff with minimal training. We will build on prior research that demonstrates how changes in salivary biomarkers can reflect the physiologic changes that result from a concussion and the subsequent healing of the neurologic system following an SRC (Di Pietro et al., 2021).

    Our investigation seeks to also determine whether an athlete is safe to return to full physical activity, using objective biomarkers in conjunction with traditional clinical procedures that rely more on subjectivity such as symptomology. As such, the proposed strategy has the potential to provide non-invasive, easy to measure specific indicators of recovery from SRC, which can influence clinical practice guidelines.
  • The goal of this pilot project is to begin to assemble the research infrastructure for successful NIH studies that examine the complex interplay of salivary factors that occur early during high school athletes' sport-related concussions and to improve our understanding of how these salivary markers change immediately post-concussion and during the recovery period from the traumatic impact.

date/time interval

  • February 2022