Investigating the Relationship Between Interhemispheric Coherence, Task, and Concussion History in an Adolescent Population
Date
2021-07-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Pediatric mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), including concussion, is a public health burden. There is a need for objective imaging metrics to understand the injury and to guide clinical treatment guidelines. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a light-based neuroimaging technology that can be a biomarker of mTBI by measuring functional connectivity between affected brain regions. This thesis aimed to determine how task affects fNIRS measures of functional connectivity, also known as coherence, from a resting state to determine effective tasks and activated regions for mTBI studies. A secondary goal was to characterize the difference in coherence between an asymptomatic adolescent group with a previous concussion and an adolescent group that had not sustained a concussion. Results indicated that tasks decrease interhemispheric coherence relative to a resting state, especially when they require increased attention. Using these results and specific interregional combinations, we observed a decrease in coherence in a sample of adolescents with a previous concussion relative to those without, although this result should be explored in a larger sample size. Overall, this thesis adds to evidence that fNIRS may be a sensitive biomarker to mTBI, especially when combined with specific tasks.
Description
Keywords
mTBI, Concussion, Imaging, fNIRS, NIRS, Functional Connectivity, Coherence, Adolescent
Citation
Pearce, S. A. (2021). Investigating the Relationship Between Interhemispheric Coherence, Task, and Concussion History in an Adolescent Population (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.