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Abstract #4405

Reduction of hippocampal blood flow in collegiate football players

Michael Zeineh 1 , David Douglas 1 , Mansi Parekh 1 , Eugene Wilson 1 , Sherveen Parivash 2 , Lex Mitchell 3 , Brian Boldt 1 , Wei Scott Bian 1 , Scott Anderson 4 , Andrew Hoffman 5 , Huy Scott Do 1 , Gerald Scott Grant 6 , Jamshid Scott Ghajar 6 , and Greg Zaharchuk 1

1 Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States, 2 Duke University, North Carolina, United States, 3 Evans Army Community Hospital, Fort Carson, Colorado, United States, 4 Sports Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States, 5 Internal Medine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States, 6 Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States

Head injury is common in contact sports and can have long-term consequences. Brain perfusion may be reduced to regions of injury and can be measured noninvasively with MRI. We performed arterial spin labeling (ASL) on 47 football players, comparing with 21 control volleyball players. This demonstrated reduced perfusion in the hippocampi and thalami. The effect size of the reduced perfusion was much greater than for traditional volumetric analysis of the hippocampi. ASL may be a useful metric for evaluating mild traumatic brain injury in sports.

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