A NOVEL TABLET BASED SYSTEM TO MEASURE THE EFFECT OF SUBCONCUSSIVE BLOWS ON SENSORIMOTOR AND COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING

Concussions have become a major societal concern with studies showing detrimental short and long-term effects on cognitive and sensory functioning. More recently, research has begun to focus on “subconcussive” blows to the head. Subconcussive blows, which are common in many sports (soccer, boxing, football, etc), do not result in the more obvious symptoms of a concussion but have the potential to cause severe brain injury. In our lab and others, eye movements have been used as a sensitive marker of cognitive and sensory changes related to specific diseases and treatments. We have developed a novel measure based on eye movement tasks that can be administered on a tablet computer. This tablet-based system allows us to study individuals (sports players on the field, patients in ER, etc) that had proven difficult to study previously. My project first aims to determine if our technique is capable of detecting brain related behavioral changes from subconcussive head blows. Utilizing this novel technique, my project also aims to better understand the short and long term effects of subconcussive blows. This project is at the forefront of developing standardized methods to help diagnose and monitor treatments in any individuals (car accidents, military combat, falls, etc) receiving subconcussive head blows