CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — As I scroll through another sheet of data, I know each entry represents the story of a high school athlete whose season — and, potentially, life — was altered due to a possible concussion. I am looking for trends and risk factors, with the goal of helping physicians and coaches better evaluate whether an athlete has sustained a concussion and when it is safe to resume activity.
Most concussion studies focus on collegiate and professional athletes, so the data I am studying is a critical first step in improving sport safety for younger athletes. Using the sport concussion assessment tool, I and my collaborators collected preseason and post-concussion injury evaluations for students in high-risk sports, such as soccer and American football. Our SCAT dataset includes 19 area high schools in Champaign, Douglas, Piatt and Vermillion Counties in Illinois, representing thousands of student athletes from 2009-2023.
Preseason evaluations can be compared with postconcussion evaluations to aid in diagnosis of concussion. We already have discovered differences in symptoms based on gender, age, mental health and other conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and some of our findings have been published in the journal Neurosurgical Focus. Knowing those differences may help clinicians more accurately diagnose concussions. Proper diagnosis is the first step to recovery, and fully recovering from a concussion before returning to sports is critical to avoid further injury.
Now, I am preparing our findings related to risk factors and injury characteristics for publication in the journal Neurosurgery in hopes of improving screening and safety. We found that concussion risk is greater in athletes with a history of concussion or head injury, as well as athletes with learning disability, dyslexia or headache/migraine disorders. Further research is needed to understand why these disorders may increase the risk. Our next step is a prospective study to learn more about high school students’ attitudes towards concussion, reporting behaviors and recovery.
Sport-related concussions are a passion project for me, but my journey to this has not been linear.
When I was 15, I took math and science courses at Illinois State University as a high school student and used computational models of neurons. I received my undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which has been my home for the last eight years. I changed my major several times, finally choosing dietetics — a field that allowed me to blend my love for science with human physiology to help others lead healthier lives. During my graduate studies at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I took a course in neuroimmunology which reignited my love for neuroscience. Following completion of my master’s degree, I choose to go to Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the U. of I. because they valued my diverse academic background.
Now, 10 years after starting research in the neurosciences, I am in my last year of medical school at CI MED. I am one of the first women from CI MED to pursue neurological surgery. Roughly 8.2% of neurosurgeons in the U.S. are women, and I hope soon to join them. To me, neurosurgery is the perfect specialty: It is a blend of surgical precision, neuroscience knowledge and critical care. In the same day, a neurosurgeon might operate on your herniated disc and later perform an emergency and life-saving surgery for someone suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke.
Neurosurgery is a competitive residency, and my pursuit of it simply would not be possible without the people I have found at CI MED and Illinois. Our research group, newly named CEREBRAL, Concussion and Epilepsy Research in Brain Imaging and Clinical Applications, primarily studies sport-related concussions in high school athletes, advances in 7 Tesla MRI and focal epilepsy syndromes. Our meetings are productive yet filled with laughter and encouragement. I am most proud of the work we have done and will continue to do, as it is work with the potential to improve the health and safety of young people within our community.
