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The Effect of Muscle Activation on Head Kinematics During Non-injurious Head Impacts in Human Subjects

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Abstract

In this study, twenty volunteers were subjected to three, non-injurious lateral head impacts delivered by a 3.7 kg padded impactor at 2 m/s at varying levels of muscle activation (passive, co-contraction, and unilateral contraction). Electromyography was used to quantify muscle activation conditions, and resulting head kinematics were recorded using a custom-fit instrumented mouthpiece. A multi-modal battery of diagnostic tests (evaluated using neurocognitive, balance, symptomatic, and neuroimaging based assessments) was performed on each subject pre- and post-impact. The passive muscle condition resulted in the largest resultant head linear acceleration (12.1 ± 1.8 g) and angular velocity (7.3 ± 0.5 rad/s). Compared to the passive activation, increasing muscle activation decreased both peak resultant linear acceleration and angular velocity in the co-contracted (12.1 ± 1.5 g, 6.8 ± 0.7 rad/s) case and significantly decreased in the unilateral contraction (10.7 ± 1.7 g, 6.5 ± 0.7 rad/s) case. The duration of angular velocity was decreased with an increase in neck muscle activation. No diagnostic metric showed a statistically or clinically significant alteration between baseline and post-impact assessments, confirming these impacts were non-injurious. This study demonstrated that isometric neck muscle activation prior to impact can reduce resulting head kinematics. This study also provides the data necessary to validate computational models of head impact.

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Acknowledgments

The research presented in this paper was made possible by a grant from Football Research, Inc. (FRI). The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent those of FRI or any of its affiliates or funding sources. The authors acknowledge the support from the University of Virginia Brain Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Applied Biomechanics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Kristen A. Reynier, Ahmed Alshareef, Daniel F. Shedd, J. Sebastian Giudice & Matthew B. Panzer

  2. Biocore, LLC, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Erin J. Sanchez & James R. Funk

  3. Department of Kinesiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Samuel R. Walton, Nicholas K. Erdman, Michael J. Higgins & Jacob E. Resch

  4. Department of Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Benjamin T. Newman & Thomas J. Druzgal

  5. Neurocognitive Assessment Lab, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Donna K. Broshek

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  1. Kristen A. Reynier
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  2. Ahmed Alshareef
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  14. Matthew B. Panzer
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Correspondence to Matthew B. Panzer.

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Associate Editor Joel Stitzel oversaw the review of this article.

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Reynier, K.A., Alshareef, A., Sanchez, E.J. et al. The Effect of Muscle Activation on Head Kinematics During Non-injurious Head Impacts in Human Subjects. Ann Biomed Eng 48, 2751–2762 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-020-02609-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-020-02609-7

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