Dr. Jennifer Krizman is an extraordinary neuroscientist who has been furthering the explanation into how concussions impact auditory processing. In February, our class had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Krizman on her current work studying concussions in division I student-athletes at Northwestern University. She has been specifically focusing on football as there is a higher rate of concussions, mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), and sub-concussions and it could be considered more of a collision sport rather than a contact sport.
In the article published by Krizman et al., “Concussion acutely disrupts auditory processing in division I football student-athletes” and in her presentation, Dr. Krizman displayed evidence for how sound processing is impacted by traumatic brain injuries. Specifically, a measure of the responses that originate in the auditory midbrain and is unique for each person acting as a “neural fingerprint” known as the frequency-following response (FFR) demonstrates that the processing of speech sounds can be delayed and reduced in collegiate-student athletes for months to years after recovering from a sports related concussion. Furthermore, collegiate student-athletes who have either endured a large amount of sub-concussive hits or a single concussion while participating in their collision or contact sports and appear to have recovered display a decline in their fundamental frequency (F0) amplitude. The F0 is responsible for identifying the source of a sound and separating specific sounds from “noise”. Additionally, it was shown that players who have endured multiple concussions may have diminished recovery. Overall, Krizman et al. propose that there is pervasive pathophysiology displayed by the auditory system following a sports related concussion which partially recovers over time (Krizman et al., 2025).
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is an idiosyncratic neurodegenerative disease where there is a buildup in neurons of hyperphosphorylated tau proteins and astrocytes in irregular patterns. CTE has been linked to violent behaviors, depression, suicide, explosivity, a loss of control, cognitive changes and memory loss. To date there is no way to identify CTE during life making effective prevention and treatment incredibly difficult. CTE has been shown to affect professional athletes and military veterans, however, as of late there has been a focus on how CTE affects amateur athletes (Mckee et al., 2016).
In an article published in late July of 2025 by The New York Times, “The Familiar Suicide and Final Wish of the N.Y.C. Gunman”, the authors report on how the gunman, Shane Tamura, responsible for the shooting in Midtown Manhattan that had occurred that previous Monday, had a note referring to CTE. “Study my brain please” was Mr. Tamura's final plea after he had murdered four others and ended his own life. There have been multiple violent crime cases where former professional athletes have murdered people, killed themselves, and later been diagnosed with CTE. Mr. Tamura was not a professional athlete though, according to the article he only played in high school, showing how a larger population of people may be at risk for CTE than was originally thought. It is important to note that the majority of individuals with CTE will never demonstrate any violent behaviors and that violent behavior, especially to the degree of Mr. Tamura or Aaron Hernandez. It is a small fraction of affected individuals who may commit violent crimes and there is no direct line between a specific violent act and an individual’s brain pathology (Macur et al., 2025).
CTE continues to grow as a public health concern, especially when considering the millions of military veterans and contact sports athletes exposed to repetitive head impacts each year. Due to the inability to diagnose CTE prior to postmortem, it is critical that future research focuses on discovery during life, increased understanding of the epidemiology and pathobiology, and developing potential tactics for prevention and treatment (Mckee et al., 2016). Due to the very promising research done by Dr. Krizman et al. as well as many others on how concussions impact auditory processing and how this could be used in the future as a more objective manner of diagnosis, I believe there is the potential for FFR or similar strategies to be used to monitor the extent of brain damage caused by collisions, concussions, and sub-concussions. Furthermore, I think this could be a promising avenue to explore for understanding the larger impacts CTE has on neural processes and could aid in creating recovery plans for patients at risk for CTE.
References
Krizman, J., Colegrove, D., Cunningham, J., Bonacina, S., Nicol, T., Nerrie, M., & Kraus, N. (2025). Concussion acutely disrupts auditory processing in division I football student-athletes. Brain injury, 39(1), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699052.2024.2396012
McKee, A. C., Alosco, M. L., & Huber, B. R. (2016). Repetitive Head Impacts and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Neurosurgery clinics of North America, 27(4), 529–535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nec.2016.05.009
Macur, J., Branch, J., & Belson, K. (2025, July 29). The familiar suicide and final wish of the N.Y.C. gunman - the new york times. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/us/nfl-cte-suicides-violence.html
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