This week, our lead article, E-bike head injury frequency, severity, and hospitalization levels increased over the past decade, is in the Sports category.

In this newsletter: Opportunities, Sports, Cannabis & Psychedelics, Organizational Highlight: Presentation to Medical Students, and Veterans.

We appreciate the Concussion Alliance volunteers and staff who created this edition:
Writers: Josh Wu, Myla Hightower, Ella Webster, and Conor Gormally

Editors: Malayka Gormally and Conor Gormally

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Opportunities

Friday, January 24, 8 am PST: A free webinar, School-Based Supports for Students with Brain Injury, presented by Susan Davies, EdD, and hosted by The Center on Brain Injury Research and Training. Register in advance.

Tuesday, January 28, 6 pm EST: A free webinar, Patient Panel: Our Journey to Recovery, with Dr. Lesley Ruttan and a panel of patients, hosted by the Canadian Concussion Centre. Register in advance.

Wednesday, January 29, 6 pm EST: A webinar, Neurofeedback for Brain Health: How innovative technology can boost mindfulness and sleep, presented by Ariel Garten, co-founder of Muse and neuroscientist, hosted by LoveYourBrain. The fee for the webinar is a sliding scale fee with a free option. Note: Muse is a device costing $200 to $350, and normally, we don’t promote webinars with device manufacturers. However, there is a fair amount of research behind this device (reviewed in this video–scroll down), and we think highly of LoveYourBrain’s webinars.

Call for study participants: military veterans who have had exposure to blasts, concussions, and/or a traumatic brain injury, including any injury to your head or neck that caused you to lose consciousness or feel dazed/confused/experience a gap in memory. Read our blog post for more information on the Late Effects of TBI (LETBI) study. If you are interested, please contact Julia Kirschenbaum at julia.kirschenbaum@mountsinai.org, call us at 212-241-5152, or sign up online.

Sports

E-bike head injury frequency, severity, and hospitalization levels increased over the past decade

A recent study published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine investigated the relationship between electric biking (e-biking) and high-impact head injuries. Niklas H Koehne et al. found that, in the past decade, the incidence of head injuries due to e-bike accidents has significantly increased, as did the severity of the injuries.

E-bikes provide a fun, convenient way to commute and are becoming increasingly popular in society. However, as the use of these motorized bicycles increases, so does the potential risk and severity of injury. The study results show that E-bike head injuries increased significantly from 2013 to 2022, particularly in 2022, in which 40.8% of all observed cases occurred. Incidents involving another motor vehicle accounted for a fourth of the head injuries and were associated with increased levels of hospitalization. The rising incidence and severity of e-bike head injuries, particularly among teenagers, indicates a need for new preventative measures.

Using data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), the researchers searched for e-bike-related brain injuries presented to emergency departments from 2013 to 2022. They organized the data based on demographics and diagnosis while supplementing this information with injury narratives to identify the mechanism of injury and motor vehicle involvement. They identified an estimated 11,052 e-bike head injuries occured between 2013 to 2022.

Motor vehicle involvement accounted for 27.6% of head injuries and was associated with higher hospitalization rates compared to accidents with no motor vehicle involvement. Age and sex also affected results. High school-aged (14-18) riders had the highest rate of accidents involving motor vehicles (53.2%) and middle school-aged adolescents (11-14) had the highest rate of concussions (26.5%). Males were more likely to be hospitalized after e-bike accidents compared to females (33% vs 25.4%), although this may be due in part to males’ nearly 84% higher rate of incidents involving motor vehicles (28.5% vs 15.5%).

Better traffic legislation and increasing awareness about sharing the road could help safeguard young e-bikers. E-bike riders can also take steps to be safer by always wearing a helmet and displaying bright or fluorescent colors so cars can see them. While this research article is a good step in identifying this problem, more research needs to be done to understand the public, health, and economic implications of e-bike-related head injuries.

Cannabis & Psychedelics

MDMA-assisted therapy offers hope for brain injury recovery

MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) holds promise as a transformative approach to neurorehabilitation for military service members with neurological injuries, according to a review by Walter Dunn et al., published in NeuroRehabilitation. The review explores how MDMA, known for its success in treating PTSD, could address emotional and cognitive barriers that complicate recovery in military populations. By fostering trust, enhancing emotional openness, and increasing neuroplasticity, MDMA-AT may help improve outcomes for service members facing both physical and psychological trauma.

Dunn and colleagues note that MDMA-AT has already demonstrated significant reductions in PTSD symptoms in clinical trials, with sustained improvements over time. These findings suggest that MDMA’s prosocial and neuroplastic effects could also benefit military patients undergoing rehabilitation for conditions such as traumatic brain injuries, where emotional challenges often hinder recovery.

Military personnel often encounter unique challenges during neurorehabilitation, including feelings of shame, isolation, and distrust. These barriers, compounded by the military’s culture of operational readiness, can weaken the therapeutic alliance—a critical factor in successful recovery. MDMA’s ability to enhance interpersonal trust and reduce fear-based emotional responses could strengthen this alliance, facilitating greater engagement in therapy. Additionally, preclinical research has shown MDMA’s potential to promote neuroplasticity, fostering the relearning of skills and functional recovery following neurological injuries. The review emphasizes the urgent need for further research to expand MDMA’s applications beyond PTSD.

Integrating MDMA-AT into neurorehabilitation programs could offer a groundbreaking strategy for addressing the intersection of psychological and neurological trauma in military populations. By tackling both emotional and cognitive barriers, MDMA-AT may enable service members to achieve more effective and comprehensive recovery.

Organizational Highlight: Presenting to Medical Students

Concussion Alliance CEO spoke to 2nd-year Medical School Students in California last week

On January 13th, Concussion Alliance Co-founder and CEO Conor Gormally presented to the class of 2nd-year medical school students at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Vallejo, California. The presentation was part of Touro’s Clinical Integrations series, which brings in patients and educators to ground medical students’ academic learning in real-world lived experience. Conor’s presentation, The Eight-Year Headache: Concussions, Persisting Symptoms, and Knowledge Translation Gaps in the Healthcare System, combined Conor’s personal story as a concussion patient with critical education for future healthcare providers.

Conor spoke about their experience with multiple concussions, navigating the healthcare system, barriers they faced to care, and living with persisting symptoms to help these students understand the human aspect of living with a chronic illness, especially one that was mismanaged during its initial years. Conor then spoke about the epidemiological scale of concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury and how their experience as a patient was a microcosm of a hidden epidemic––one made worse by broad cultural misperceptions of concussion, barriers to continuing education for current and future healthcare providers, and the underlying issue of slow knowledge of knowledge from research to clinical practice.

Considering that medical students are broadly not receiving adequate concussion education, Conor’s talk is a potentially critical intervention for this class of the next generation of doctors. With that in mind, Conor’s talk included education on the 6th Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport; changes in understanding of the injury; current best practices for acute care, rehabilitation and referral, and self-care; and the critical importance of mental health and a patient-centered model of care.

Conor is excited to continue speaking to medical school students. If you know of a medical school with a Colloquium speaker series, please consider contacting Concussion Alliance to invite Conor to speak to your students.

Veterans

Years of fighter jet flying may be causing brain injuries in Navy pilots

In a New York Times article, journalist Dave Phillips highlights a confidential Navy project––code-named Project Odin’s Eye. Project Odin’s Eye, launched last year to study brain injuries in Navy SEALs exposed to repetitive blasts, aims to determine whether flying fighter jets poses significant risks to brain health.This project will collect detailed data on brain function from F/A-18 Super Hornet TOPGUN pilots to assess the cumulative effects of extreme flying under intense G forces. The military reportedly expedited the project to address the growing concerns about the long-term well-being of the pilots. In the past 18 months, three experienced Super Hornet pilots died by suicide after battling severe mental health challenges.

Former pilots feel this study is long overdue, as many are experiencing symptoms that neurologists suspect are linked to brain injuries. Pilots endure intense G forces during flights, which compress their brains against their skulls. While the brain can recover from occasional impacts, repeated exposure over a career can lead to progressive, irreversible damage as torn neuron connections accumulate beyond the brain's capacity to reroute signals.

The three recent fighter pilot suicides have raised alarms about possible brain injuries, but no post-mortem testing for such damage was conducted. Current technology cannot definitively assess the microscopic damage of sub-concussive injuries in living brains, though it can detect changes in structural and functional connectivity, diffuse axonal injury, increases in inflammation, and other potentially relevant indicators. The article did not discuss what type of scans or studies the project would make use of, although this study potentially marks a step toward addressing the long-term effects of this thrilling profession.