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.
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
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