Cerebral Oxygenation and Cardiac Responses in Adult Women’s Rugby: A Season-Long Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Sport-related concussion is common in rugby union, yet female players remain underrepresented in research. This study examined seasonal changes in cerebral oxygenation, cardiac function, and concussion symptomology in adult female rugby players, and explored acute physiological responses following a single documented concussion. Methods: A total of 29 adult females (19 amateur rugby, 10 control) completed pre-, mid-, and end-season assessments. Measures included functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) of the pre-frontal cortex, seismocardiography (SCG)-derived cardiac timing indices, and Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 6 (SCAT6). Group and time effects were analysed using general linear models and statistical parametric mapping. Typical error (TE) and its 90% confidence intervals (90% CI) were used to determine meaningful changes post-concussion. Results: Rugby players reported more SCAT6 symptoms (number: p = 0.006, η2p = 0.23; severity: p = 0.020, η2p = 0.17). They also had shorter systolic time (p = 0.002, η2p = 0.19) and higher twist force values (p = 0.014, η2p= 0.21) than controls. fNIRS revealed higher right-hemisphere oxyhaemoglobin (ΔO2Hb) responses for both tasks (ps < 0.001, η2p = 0.77 and η2p = 0.80) and lower activation in specific prefrontal channels. No seasonal changes occurred in global oxygenation or frequency band activity. In the exploratory single-concussion case, symptomology, SCG twist force, ΔO2Hb, and cardiac band power exceeded TE and its 90% CI at 5 days post-injury. Conclusions: The multimodal approach detected stable group-level physiology alongside localised cortical and cardiac differences, and acute changes following concussion. While these results highlight the potential of combined fNIRS and SCG measures to capture physiological disturbances, the small sample size and single-concussion case necessitate cautious interpretation. Further validation in larger, longitudinal cohorts is required before any biomarker utility can be inferred.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".