Researchers are finalizing their recent pilot study on photobiomodulation conducted by The University of Utah. In this video produced by the research team, several of the men who participated in the study talk about their deteriorating health due to repetitive head hits and concussions, their concerns about CTE, and how light therapy during the clinical trial substantially improved their health.

A study conducted by Stephen C. Bunt et al. found that low resilience was associated with a greater number and increased severity of symptoms three months following a sports-related concussion (SRC).

A web-based concussion education initiative sponsored by the Barrow Neurological Institute, Barrow Brainbook, has reached over one million high school athletes in Arizona since its establishment in 2011. The initiative teaches students how to prevent concussions, recognize the signs and symptoms of concussions, and respond to concussions.

A study conducted by Theodore Macnow et al. found that patients who limited their screen time following a concussion recovered faster than those permitted unlimited screen time.

Mark Patrick Pankow et al. conducted the first-ever systematic review and meta-analysis of “incidence rates, risk factors, and prevention of concussion and head impacts” in youth tackle football. Their review, published in Sports Medicine, was “also the first to produce a pooled estimate of concussion incidence rate by session type in football (i.e., games, practices).”

The Tampa, Florida VA association’s Post-Deployment Rehabilitation and Evaluation Program (PREP) “is an inpatient rehabilitation program that specializes in the evaluation and treatment of complex reactions and symptoms associated with possible mild TBI.” The program appears to be one of the more comprehensive multidisciplinary care programs.

A study of concussion patients to determine the impact of “initiating physical activity as soon as 24 to 48 hours after concussion to reduce persistent postconcussive symptoms.” They found that adolescent concussion patients who initiated physical activity before their first clinic visit (clinic visits were an average of 9.8 days after concussion) were better off.

UN Women has released information about the growing IPV against women during the pandemic; they report an increase in calls for IPV by 25-40% in many countries, and “an additional 15 million women would be affected by IPV for every three months of lockdown.”

A preliminary study suggests that younger soccer players encounter more total head impacts during “repetitive technical training activities,” while scrimmages and games resulted in fewer head impacts of “greater magnitude.”

A research article in Concussion studied the “barriers and facilitators” that family physicians face when helping patients manage mental health complications following a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

In an effort to improve current unmet medical needs for athletes, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a non-invasive hypothermic therapy device intended to decrease the severity of concussion symptoms and help patients get back to their pre-injury baseline.

An abstract presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2021 Annual Meeting demonstrated that “multiple concussions [three to five] seem to disrupt the brain’s default mode network (DMN), which could increase the risk of long-term cognitive disruption,” according to an article in Medscape.

According to the Veterans Association (VA), 11.9% of veterans use marijuana, often to self-medicate for illnesses like PTSD. Yet the VA will not expand its cannabis research and "continues to deny cannabis recommendations to veterans in 36 states that allow medical marijuana," according to an article in Politico.

The top-flight of English football, the Premier League (PL), announced plans to administer saliva tests that could potentially diagnose concussions sustained during games or training sessions. The trial, an academic study funded by the Premier League and intended to validate salivary biomarkers as a diagnostic tool, may start sometime this season (which ends in May 2022).

A large-scale research project to study biomarkers that may predict delayed recovery in children and adolescents aged 11-18 was awarded $10 million by the National Institutes of Health. According to a UCLA press release, the research project (entitled CARE4Kids) will observe over thirteen hundred children and teens nationwide.

Renowned light therapy researchers Dr. Laura Martin, Dr. Margaret Naeser, and Dr. Michael Ho are currently recruiting study participants for a studies that aims to see if light therapy can improve thinking and memory in people who have suffered one or more traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, and who are experiencing persistent symptoms.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) can only be diagnosed after death via autopsy. However, according to new research published in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, MRIs may soon detect CTE in people still alive, allowing doctors to make an earlier diagnosis.

A study found that the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) symptom scores can be converted to Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire (RPQ) scores. “Being able to convert between the two scores would facilitate comparison of results in the concussion literature.”

Gregory Tierney published a review on concussion biomechanics, head acceleration events (HAE), and brain injury criteria in Taylor & Francis Online. Tierney pooled data from past studies to understand the relationship between the kinematic magnitude and rotational nature of HAE and damage to the brain.

Researchers found decreased gray matter thickness in the frontal and temporal brain lobes of those who’d had COVID-19 compared to those who had not had the virus. The researchers also found that, based on “performance on cognitive tasks,” those who had contracted COVID-19 were slower in processing information (the primary function of gray matter in the brain).