CHHS faculty, student, alumni concussion research published

March 1, 2017

Faculty, alumni and students in the College of Health and Human Sciences (CHHS), whose research focuses on the effects of concussions, recently had a study published in the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

John Dobson, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Health and Kinesiology, Mary Beth Yarbrough (‘16), CHHS alumna and academic advisor, Jose Perez, graduate exercise science student, and Kelsey Evans (‘15), CHHS alumna, in collaboration with Thomas Buckley, Ed.D., from the University of Delaware, teamed up to write “Sport-Related Concussion Induces Transient Cardiovascular Autonomic Dysfunction.”

Dobson, along with colleagues, has spent the past several years investigating the effects of concussions on cardiovascular function. The study included 12 college students who had suffered a concussion while participating in a recreational sport. Students were compared to 11 controlled participants who were matched by sex, height and mass and had no history of concussions.

Researchers administered tests that measured involuntary changes in heart rate and blood pressure. The study found that concussions cause short-term impairment of the cardiovascular system, but symptoms typically resolve within three days of the injury.

“This was the most difficult study I have ever conducted because it took two and a half years to collect the data, and the analyses were very complicated,” said Dobson. “However, we had a fantastic research team consisting of three excellent graduate students and one other faculty member. We are thrilled that our study was published in the prestigious American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, and that the American Physiological Society just recognized it through an official press release.”

Read the full article here.

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