Project 461805

Concussion is a serious public health concern for youths. In Ontario, concussion-related emergency department and office visits for children quadrupled from 2003 to 2013 and have continued to rise since then. Thirty percent of all youth do not get better quickly after a concussion. They experience symptoms for a longer period of time that can affect their day-to-day life. One area in which these youths struggle is with foggy thinking and difficulty paying attention. This makes learning challenging and affects performance at school. Teenagers are at a higher risk than younger children or adults of experiencing long-lasting problems after concussion. This is likely because of the important aspects of brain development that are happening in these years. Teenage girls, in particular, are more likely to have a longer recovery after concussion than boys who experience a similar injury. There are currently no proven, effective therapies for teenagers that experience long-lasting symptoms after concussion. Brain stimulation therapy has proven to be effective in other brain disorders but has not been applied to concussion. This is because there is a lack of knowledge about where the brain is injured and how it leads to problems with thinking. This study will look at teenagers with long-lasting concussion symptoms using advanced brain scanning techniques (magnetoencephalography and diffusion MRI) and tests of thinking to (1) discover where in the brain structural injury and slowed brain function occur together, (2) test if injury causes slowed function that leads to attention problems and, (3) determine whether girls and boys with long-lasting problems after concussion have different brain changes and problems with their attention. Findings from this project will help us to better understand the effects of concussion and identify areas of the brain that would benefit from brain stimulation therapies.