Neurovascular Coupling by Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy and Sport-Related Concussion in Retired Rugby Players: The UK Rugby Health Project
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Aim: This study investigated haemodynamic responses to a neurovascular coupling test in retired contact athletes with a history of repeated mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and in controls with no history of mTBI. Methods: 21 retired rugby players (47.7 ± 12.9 yr old; age at retirement: 38.5 ± 8.9 yr) with a history of 3 or more diagnosed concussions (8.9 ± 7.9 concussions per player) and 23 controls with no history of mTBI (46.5 ± 12.8 yr old) performed a neurovascular coupling test to detect task orientated haemodynamic changes using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Results: The neurovascular coupling showed a significant diminished haemodynamic response in comparison to the control group which had a greater relative increase of oxyhaemoglobin (O2Hb). There were reductions in left middle frontal gyrus O2Hb and increases in deoxyhaemoglobin (HHb) in the same region for the mTBI group. These results suggest altered cerebral metabolic demands in participants with a history of multiple head injuries. The mTBI group induced a greater rate of oxygen extraction compared to the control group. Conclusion: This was the first study to examine haemodynamic changes in retired rugby players in response to a neurovascular coupling test and we found reduced cerebral haemodynamic responses in participants with a history of mTBI compared to controls. Further research is needed to ascertain an understanding of the changes in haemodynamics from playing, into retirement.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".