In late March, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association released its updated recommendations for the management of sport-related concussions – a document that hadn’t been updated in over a decade.

A recent study published in JAMA Neurology by DeCarli et al. found that brain volumes and brain size are becoming progressively larger––based on MRI brain imaging observations of participants born between 1930 and 1970.

Ronda Rousey, a former MMA fighter, tells her story of her life-long experience with concussions and lasting health impacts in a recent interview with The Guardian.

A study published in JAMA Network Open challenges the existing idea that early childhood concussion may have relatively benign effects and highlights that postconcussive symptoms can be relatively long-lasting.

In a study published in Sports Health, Master et al. found that the existence of pre-injury mental health diagnoses correlated with longer concussion recovery time and increased emotional symptoms.

A six-year study in the Journal of Neurotrauma explored the impact of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) on concussion recovery in adolescents and young adults.

A study conducted by Matthew Smith et al. and published in The Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine found that, in adolescent athletes, cooling therapy was associated with a significant decrease in post-concussion symptoms.

The journal Neurochemistry International recently published a review that details the role of mitochondria in traumatic brain injury (TBI).

As reported in a recent study, a massive open online course (MOOC) developed by Laval University (Quebec, Canada) offering education on concussion was found to have considerable success, suggesting courses like this could be an important tool for spreading concussion prevention and treatment information in the future.

In the 2023 Women’s World Cup, there was a new introduction to the state of play for the tournament: concussion spotters. Spotters are certified athletic trainers not tied to any specific team.

A study found that there was a small, not statistically relevant relationship between greater neck strength and a lower risk of sustaining a sports-related concussion in athletes.

A study found that athletes who used cannabis regularly had better eye focus ability and lower levels of brain inflammation compared to the non-cannabis group after repetitive subconcussive head impacts.

A study published in JAMA Network Neurology found that “repetitive heading during a professional soccer career is associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment later in life” and self-reported dementias in retired male professional soccer players

A recent report by Memmini and colleagues identifies key principles of return-to-learn for college athletes to explore how non-athletes fare in the college classroom after a concussion.

Concussion Alliance Co-Founders Conor Gormally and Malayka Gormally are featured in a powerful and excellently written story written by Isobel Whitcomb for Slate Magazine (Slate Magazine USA).

In October 2023, Willie Stewart et al. published a paper in Acta Neuropathologica demonstrating an association between the development of CTE and the length of a person’s rugby career.

A study published in Biological Psychiatry

found that concussions may alter the trajectory of white matter maturation in female children and that this alteration may play a role in the onset of new depression and anxiety after concussion. 

Findings from a recent study in Nature Mental Health exploring the gut-brain-microbiota axis revealed that those who adhered to a Mediterranean diet experienced reduced PTSD symptoms,

In a recent study, Lily Li-Wen Wang et al. found that macrophage-adhering GLAMs can be used to identify the presence of mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs) that do not show up on standard MRI brain scans.

A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that in mice, memory loss after being subjected to a high frequency of mild head impacts was linked to a deficiency in synaptic plasticity rather than “a loss of neural infrastructure.” There is the possibility that “cognitive impairment caused by head impact” could be clinically reversed.