Mild traumatic brain injury (concussion)-In a collaborative project with Dr. Joseph Hazzard of Exercise Science, we are working toward finding biomarkers for concussion in human body fluid samples. Timothy Shuey (class of 2016, now a medical student at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine) was the first students working on the project. Since then, Diane Cruz (class of 2016, now a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army) and Andrew Denisenko (class of 2017, accepted to Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine) have furthered the project. Cruz and Denisenko discovered a potential marker. Through meta-analysis, Alison Martin (class of 2019) discovered that women soccer players have statistically significant higher levels of the marker in saliva than men soccer players. We are preparing a manuscript for publication in a neurology journal.
Alison Martin and Christopher Holdren (graduate student in Exercise Science, class of 2018) have begun to further investigate the differences in biomarker levels between women’s soccer and men’s soccer players. Levels of biomarker are being correlated with scores in a balance assessment. Holdren will write up the work as his master’s thesis, as well as a manuscript for publication.
