Mood alterations in concussed university athletes who made a complete return to play

Sauvé W, Moore R, Ellemberg D. (2018). Mood alterations in concussed university athletes who made a complete return to play. Neurology, 91(S1):S26

Affective disorders such as depression are now estimated by the WHO to be the greatest cause of disability worldwide (Mathers et al., 2006). Brain research into affective dysregulation suggest that the prefrontal cortex plays a particular role in the regulation of affect (Johnstone & Walter, 2014) One common injury of the prefrontal cortex is concussion, which accounts for 70%–90% of all brain injuries(Cassidy et al., 2004).

Most of the literature related to the consequences of concussion is cross-sectional, which mean that it is difficult to clearly identify a cause and effect relationship (Caruana et al., 2015). The purpose of this study was to assess the mood states of university athletes before a concussion and during the acute phase of the injury. As such, 15 collegiate athletes (age = 20.87 ± 1.92) completed the Beck’s Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) at baseline (73.40 ± 34.33 days prior to a concussion) and on average 6 days following a concussion after making a complete return to play. On the POMS subscales, athletes reported lower vigor (p = 0.03) at day 6 (12.47 ± 4.81) compared to their preinjury score (14.60 ± 3.79). Athletes also reported greater intensity of depressive symptoms on the total score of the BDI-II (p = 0.05) at day 6 (7.33 ± 8.15) compared to their preinjury score (4.53 ± 4.29).

A trend was also observed (p = 0.08) on the somatic subscale of the BDI-II where athletes reported greater somatic symptoms following a concussion (4.27 ± 3.97) compared to pre-concussion (2.87 ± 2.61). Although the current results do not suggest concussions lead to clinically significant mood alterations, they do support subtle mood alterations selective to vigor and depression.

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