The Hidden Impact of Concussions

A concussion is often characterized as a temporary brain injury associated with headache, dizziness and memory problems; however emerging neuroscience research has suggested that it has evident effects on the brain's ability to process sound and speech, extending beyond the anticipated symptoms. More specifically, causing difficulty in listening and communicating which possesses the question if hidden symptoms of brain injuries and often explained away by fatigue and distraction?

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to listen to Jennifer Krizman’s presentation on the auditory biological markers of concussion in children, where she discussed how concussions impact the way the brain processes speech. She studied frequency following response, which captures how accurately the brain responds to sound. Her presentation and emergent dissolves suggest that concussion can have a more significant effect on the sensory processing system compared to traditional symptom-dependent diagnoses. 

Similar findings are studied in a recent study tilted Persistent post-concussion symptoms include neural auditory processing in young children which explained how concussions influence auditory processing after initial symptoms seem to improve. The researchers found that children with concussions have weaker neural encoding of speech sounds, specifically for pitch-related cues which are integral in unders†ådning everyday speech. These findings support Kriman’s idea that the effect of concussion can still be present in the brain after symptoms seem to improve, which indicates recovery can not be solely judged by symptom reports.

How Hands Help and Hurt

 When we think about learning, we usually focus on what is said. We assume that words carry the meaning and that gestures are just extra movement. But research in cognitive science suggests that our hands may play a much larger role in comprehension and memory than we realize. Research in cognitive science shows your hands shape, meaning, and memory. Gesture shifts comprehension. Gesture also disrupts comprehension. Natalia Zielinski and Elizabeth Wakefield tested this in 2021. They studied Polish-English bilingual children. They asked one question. Do gestures help more when language feels harder? 

Children watched stories in English and Polish. English served as stronger language. Polish served as weaker language. The storyteller used two gesture types. Matching gestures reinforced speech. Mismatching gestures added unstated details. Researchers tracked eye movement. They measured recall after each story. The results showed patterns. Children recalled more when matching gestures paired with weaker language. They looked at their hands more during weaker language. Gestures worked as support. When speech strained processing, children shifted attention to visual input. Mismatching gestures failed to help. Some reduced accuracy. 

Nicole Dargue found similar effects. Gestures aligned with speech improved comprehension. Gestures misaligned increased cognitive load. Cognitive load drives this pattern. Working memory holds limited information. Adults store about four chunks at once. Second language processing consumes capacity. Matching gestures distribute information across visual and verbal systems. Mismatching gestures demand integration of extra content. Capacity overload reduces recall. 

Zielinski’s eye-tracking data explains the mechanism. Attention shifts are based on difficulty. Gesture helps when you allocate focus. Gesture fails when attention splits. 

When you teach or present, do your hands mirror your words? Or do they introduce new content? In bilingual classrooms, gesture choice shapes equity. Students learning in a weaker language benefit from aligned visual cues. Extra motion without alignment strains memory. 

You communicate every day. When content grows complex, where do your eyes move? 
When you speak, do your gestures support your message or compete with it? 

References

Dargue, N., & Sweller, N. (2020). Learning stories through gesture: Gesture’s effects on child and adult narrative comprehension. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 249–276.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2021.104000

Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. M. (2021). Language proficiency impacts the benefits of co-speech gesture for narrative understanding through a visual attention mechanism. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43.

(02.03.26) - Elizabeth Wakefield - OneDrive 

 

Fundamental Frequency of Sound as Unique Animal Communication

 

Human auditory perception is so complex that we have the ability to distinguish people based on the slightest differences in their voice. The differences go beyond just pitch or volume, and many people use the word "color" to describe the specific tonal specialty of an individual, whether they are singing or simply talking. This "color" is what makes us instantly turn when hearing someone we know instead of lumping all background voices together. This "color" has a technical term; fundamental frequency, or F0, and this determines the uniqueness of human voice, and also, animals 'voices' too.

The paper "Auditory biological marker of concussion in children" by Nina Kraus et. al. relates fundamental frequency and other aspects of auditory processing to how brain damages experienced after a concussion. By comparing graphs of auditory perception from an individual pre and post traumatic brain injury, it can be determined whether damage has been done from said injury and whether it is to the extent of a concussion. Since concussions have no acute diagnostic test, being able to observe damage in this way could be a very beneficial diagnostic tool. Fundamental frequency, then, is a highly complex and special feature of auditory production and processing.

Furthermore, Kraus et. al. states that "tracking the F0 facilitates pitch perception, identifying sounds and talkers, and understanding stress and prosody," (Kraus, 2016) so not only is our processing of F0 useful for identifying the owner of a sound, but also what to interpret from the sound, on a very subtle level. This could mean that outside of intentional tone used by an individual when speaking, the very F0 of their voice could dictate some level of tonal perception as well. Maybe some fundamental frequencies innately have an off-putting expression, and some are more calming and inviting. This could be an explanation for certain "vibes" people may put off when they speak, an intangible perception others receive audibly that affects how they perceive the person as a result.

Humans are not the only creatures who have a fundamental frequency of sound, but animals do as well. They communicate in their own ways and can probably distinguish members of their species similarly to how humans do. However, there is one animal who has an extra layer of uniqueness to their fundamental frequency and sound they produce, and that is the horse. Horses have long been known to have a unique sound when they whinny, but now it is understood how; in one sound, horses produce two fundamental frequencies. There is a low-pitched sound from vibrating the larynx, like when humans sing, and simultaneously there is a high-pitched whistling from the vocal cords, unusual to most large animals. In a statement to Scientific American by co-author of the paper that discusses these findings, Élodie Briefer says “In the past, we found that these two frequencies are important for horses, as they convey different messages about the horses’ own emotions,” (Briefer, 2026). I think it is interesting that horses are one animal that has evolved to have two separate mechanics of sound production. There are birds for example that can produce two separate whistle sounds simultaneously, but they come from the same system, unlike the whistling and vibration patterns of a horse's whinny.

Both the paper by Kraus et. al. and the study about horses illustrate a unique auditory concept, fundamental frequency, and show how it has great value among humans as well as other animals. of sound. The findings about horses and how their F0 is a factor in their emotional communication could provide insight into how F0 conveys emotion and tone, and this could translate into human communication as well. Fundamental frequency is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for communication in specifying certain things, like owner and pitch, but there is something extra special about the way horses have evolved with it, allowing them to produce multiple F0s through different mechanisms. I am interested to see where these findings take scientists in the fields of neuroscience, auditory mechanisms, and human and animals processes.

 

References:

Kraus, Nina et. al. 2016. Auditory biological marker of concussion in children. Scientific Report retrieved from Nature.com

Mogensen, Jackie Flynn. “Horses Whinny by Making Sounds in a Unique Way That Is Not Seen in Other Animals.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 25 Feb. 2026, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-horses-whinny-has-long-been-a-mystery-now-scientists-think-they-know-the/.

Potential Drug Suppresses a Key Hallmark of Alzheimers

    

Potential Drug Suppresses a Key Hallmark of Alzheimers     

The loss of synaptic connections is a key predictor of Alzheimer's disease. This irreversible neurodegenerative brain disorder destroys memory and thinking, eventually destroying the ability to perform simple everyday tasks. Amyloid-β is a peptide that is especially prone to misfolding and aggregation, which abnormally accumulates in AD patients, initiating synaptic dysfunction. Synaptic loss and the accumulation of Aβ strongly correlate with impairment in AD, yet the mechanism linking the origin of this loss and the pattern it follows remains unclear. 

Upon taking Introduction to Neuroscience, I had an assignment in which I explored recent news about Alzheimer's disease. This study targeted arginine-Aβ in mice, how it accumulates early, drives inflammation, and precedes behavioral impairment. This past semester, I was able to listen to Dr. Delgado explain his research. In the study “Pin1 binding to phosphorylated PSD-95 regulates the number of functional excitatory synapses," Dr. Delgado and colleagues suggest a molecular mechanism by which the phosphorylation of PSD- 95, a postsynaptic density protein, recruits Pin-1 and decreases the number of functional synapses. When reading his research article, I began to understand the connection that can be made to findings I had previously read about.  

The study, "Oral administration of arginine suppresses Aβ pathology in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease," follows the study of a potential drug that can reverse aggregates present in Alzheimer's cases. The team evaluated Aβ, a key hallmark of Alzheimer's, in different animals carrying different mutations. Scientists tested the peptide to see if the drug, arginine, stops the accumulation of Aβ.  Findings from Kindai University suggest that reduced Aβ aggregation leads to less kinase overactivation. The less pathological phosphorylation leads to less Pin1 recruitment, and the preserved PSD- 95 maintains excitatory synapses. Aβ aggregation likely leads to the phosphorylation events that enable Pin1- mediated synaptic loss. The results were promising as both accumulation and toxicity were mitigated, as well as behavioral performance improvement and a reduction of neuroinflammation.

These findings lend support to a theory where incorrect phosphorylation signaling triggered by Aβ aggregation destabilizes postsynaptic scaffolding through Pin1and PSD-95 interactions, resulting in synapse loss. This synaptic loss may be reversed through interventions such as the drug arginine, which has shown to suppress aggregation and indirectly protect synapses by preventing activation of this destabilizing pathway. These findings open new possibilities for developing new strategies and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. 

Together, these studies highlight how Alzheimer’s disease progression may be driven not only by the presence of amyloid-β, but by the molecular signaling cascades it initiates at the synapse. By linking Aβ aggregation to abnormal phosphorylation events that destabilize postsynaptic scaffolding through Pin1 and PSD-95, this work helps clarify how early synaptic loss emerges and spreads before widespread disease progression. Importantly, the ability of arginine to suppress Aβ aggregation and reduce downstream pathological signaling suggests that targeting early aggregation events may preserve synaptic integrity and slow cognitive decline. Because aggregations and protein misfolding are central to a great variety of neurodegenerative diseases, these findings can have broader applications beyond just Alzheimer’s. Together, these findings emphasize the value of combining molecular, synaptic, and behavioral approaches to better understand Alzheimer’s disease and to guide the development of disease-modifying therapies aimed at protecting synaptic connections, such as arginine.  Alzheimer’s breakthroughs bring us closer to slowing and reversing memory loss. It is compelling as these advances offer hope for protecting and preserving the moments that matter most.

References 

Delgado, J. Y.; et al. Pin1 Binding to Phosphorylated PSD-95 Regulates the Number of Functional Excitatory Synapses. Neurochemistry International 2025, 186, 105835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuint.2025.105835

Fujii K, Takeuchi T, Fujino Y, Tanaka N, Fujino N, Takeda A, Minakawa EN, Nagai Y. Oral administration of arginine suppresses Aβ pathology in animal models of Alzheimer's disease. Neurochem Int. 2025 Dec;191:106082. doi: 10.1016/j.neuint.2025.106082. Epub 2025 Oct 30. PMID: 41175945.

The Influence of Gesture on Conformity

 Recently, I was given the opportunity to listen to Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield discuss her research findings on the relationship between speech and gesture in language comprehension. From her research, Wakefield and her colleagues determined that the amount of attention given to gestures while someone is speaking is influenced by a person’s proficiency in the language. To determine this, Wakefield and her colleagues tracked the eye movements of bilingual children with a stronger proficiency in one language than the other as they watched several lectures in both languages. This allowed the researchers to analyze how often the children attended to the hand gestures and compare it with their comprehension of the lecture. The data showed that a lower language proficiency lead to a higher attentiveness to the gestures of the lecturers.

After hearing Dr. Wakefield talk about her and her colleagues findings from this study,  I was reminded of the Asch Conformity Experiment on peer pressure and assimilation I had learned about previously. The Asch Conformity Experiment examined what it takes for a person to ignore what they know to be true because of the opinions of others. In this study, one participant was asked an easy question after witnessing several confederates intentionally answer the same question incorrectly. Similar to the later Stanford Prison Experiment, researchers concluded that it takes little pressure for people to deny what they believe to be true and conform to a group.

Based on these two studies, I believe that further research should be conducted on the relationship between gestures and body language and how they influence our likelihood of forsaking our beliefs to conform to perceived expectations. Exploring this connection could further our understanding of how gestures can be effectively used in the classroom to support student learning as well as identify the factors that lead people to go against their personal knowledge or even compromise their moral code under social pressure.

Asch, S. E. (1952). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership, and men. Carnegie Press. https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/1952-asch.pdf

Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. M. (2021). Language proficiency impacts the benefits of co-speech gesture for narrative understanding through a visual attention mechanism. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq

Helmet to Helmet to Concussion

Concussions are becoming more common, especially in professional athletes, but also in children who play contact sports. Although diagnosing a concussion can be very ambiguous, there is hope for a better diagnostic tool for concussions as well as advanced protective gear, such as helmets, that can prevent concussions altogether. 

In a recent seminar presentation at Loyola University Chicago, Jennifer Krizman spoke about her research article “Auditory biological marker of concussion in children”, which investigated alternative testing for concussion diagnosis in children, specifically measuring speech-evoked frequency-following responses (FFRs) and neural processing of the fundamental frequency of speech (F0). During Krizman’s study, she measured the FFRs and F0 responses of children who had been diagnosed with a concussion and she found that they had smaller responses compared to children without a concussion. Children diagnosed with a concussion also had poorer pitch coding and slower responses to half of the auditory neural processing features. Severity of the concussion also made larger differences in the auditory neural processing, suggesting concussion severity plays a significant role in speech processing. Krizman’s research suggests that concussions disrupt the auditory neural processing pathway and measuring FFRs and F0 responses could be a potential tool to better diagnose concussions since there is no one singular test for a concussion. 

An article by Adrian Cho titled “Softening the Blow” described the technology behind sport helmets and how they are always evolving year to year to lessen the risk of athletes getting concussions. The Virginia Tech helmet lab is one of the foremost manufactures of the sport helmet and they are evolving their designs each year to try to decrease the concussion rates across professional and college sports. The NFL concussion rate has been steadily declining with improved helmet design, but it will be difficult to determine if the improved helmet design reduces the incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a disease similar to Alzheimer’s disease and is caused by the repeated blows to the head. Researchers explain that the risk of concussion depends on the dynamics of the hit, specifically if it is linear or rotational acceleration, which can cause the brain tissue to twist and deform. Helmets are more flexible than before to allow the helmet to absorb the shock of a hit. Researchers in the Virginia Tech helmet lab reproduce hits at six different locations and three different speeds to test the helmets. But some critics argue that this type of stationary testing is not accurate because no one has ever stood still during a game and gotten hit. Concussions most likely occur during physical movement, so the testing protocols need to work in more dynamic impact tests to truly understand the science behind concussions and how to keep athletes safe. 

Both Krizman’s research article and Cho’s news article bring to light the dangers of concussions and explore different opportunities to improve concussion protocol. Krizman dives into the testing aspect for concussion diagnosis whereas Cho explains the evolution of sport helmet safety and concussion prevention. They both are interested in preventing concussions and long-term effects, which is something very important in the sports community, especially in young children, but also high school, college, and professional athletes.

References: 

Kraus, N., Thompson, E. C., Krizman, J., Cook, K., White-Schwoch, T., & LaBella, C. R. (2016). Auditory biological marker of concussion in children. Scientific Reports, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39009 

Cho, A. (2026). Softening the Blow: Inside the quest to make a safer football helmet. AAAS Articles DO Group. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.zs6zhs0

Rhythmic experiences such as playing Tetris can mitigate neurological trauma symptoms

    If you have ever observed a competitive Tetris player in the midst of the game, you may have noticed that there is a certain rhythm which the player adopts. The way the blocks are spun and placed down begin to follow a certain flow, not much different from the beat of a song. In a recent study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, it is revealed that patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from witnessing extreme violence had a significant reduction of symptoms and increase in hippocampal brain matter when their treatment plan had included playing Tetris once a day over a period of time (1). 

    Participants in the study had very recent exposure to a traumatic event while serving in the German Federal Armed Forces. Prompt treatment following exposure to the traumatic event had been essential to the study, as the study aimed at diminishing the consolidation of the traumatic memory. One group of discharged individuals was instructed to play Tetris for an hour a day and for 25 minutes following an intrusive memory in addition to treatment with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. A control group had only been treated for PTSD with EMDR therapy. After 6 months of treatment, the Tetris group had a greater remission of PTSD symptoms, particularly anxiety, than did the non-Tetris group according to before and after questionnaire results. Furthermore, MRI neuroimaging revealed that the Tetris group had an increase in hippocampal volume that the non-Tetris group did not demonstrate.

    Recently, I had the honor to sit in on a talk by Dr. Jennifer Krizman at Loyola University Chicago. She was discussing her work on auditory processing changes in children that have sustained concussions while playing a sport (2). Her study showed that children who had recently sustained concussions had issues with processing fundamental frequencies in speech, which is the primary pitch produced by a sound. When exposed to an auditory stimulus, the frequency-following response (FFR) that is produced in the brain is weakened in children with concussions, diminishing their understanding of speech and lowering overall synchrony in brain function. 

    Dr. Krizman began to discuss how having a concussion disrupted the rhythmic capabilities of patients, and that the very brain processes that are hindered by concussion are seen to be enhanced in musicians. People who were better at holding a rhythm also showed advantages in ability to encode sound. Dr. Krizman emphasized the importance of rhythm in our fundamental tasks as humans, explaining that rhythm is essential to life, such as with circadian rhythms and auditory processing. She shared that rhythm training in concussed individuals yielded promising results with alleviating concussion symptoms, so much so that it could be used as a potential concussion treatment.

    I found this information particularly interesting, thinking back to the study about PTSD treatment with Tetris. In both scenarios, rhythmic experiences had the ability to support brain growth in a way that allowed individuals to recover from brain trauma. This poses the question whether there are other rhythmic experiences that may be a viable supplement for brain trauma treatment, PTSD or not. Perhaps rhythm games other than Tetris could be beneficial to brain recovery following trauma, such as Guitar Hero and others. Some individuals may benefit from more physical rhythmic activities such as dance or learning a new instrument. This prospect of rhythm as treatment for trauma opens up many doors for discovery and life-changing care. Without a doubt, it is something worth looking into.

References

(1) Butler, Oisin, et al. “Trauma, treatment and Tetris: Video gaming increases hippocampal volume in male patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.” Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, vol. 45, no. 4, July 2020, pp. 279–287, https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.190027.

(2) Kraus, Nina, et al. “Auditory biological marker of concussion in children.” Scientific Reports, vol. 6, no. 1, 22 Dec. 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39009.