A CULTURE
OF RESEARCH

More than 160,000 Canadians suffer concussions each year, half of which are sports-related. There is currently no cure for concussion, and no concussion is the same. Many individuals experience cognitive deficits and physical symptoms long after the impact. They struggle to return to, and fully experience, daily life.

Researchers at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry have made significant strides in broadening the understanding of what exactly occurs in the brain after a concussion. From molecular biology to state-of-the art brain imaging, their research is advancing scientific knowledge in order to better diagnose and develop therapies that will improve short- and long-term outcomes for concussions.

By using sophisticated MRI imaging techniques to look at the brains of concussed athletes, researchers were able to show that there are changes to white matter tracts of the brain, and also to metabolite levels in the brain after a concussion. The researchers demonstrated that these changes persisted long after the athletes were clinically cleared to return to play, opening the window for better, more sophisticated diagnostic measures.

“This certainly suggests that the brain is still attempting to repair itself even after the athletes have gone back to play,” said Ravi Menon, PhD, professor at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry and a scientist at Robarts Research Institute. Menon’s study looked at white matter changes in the brain using MRI scans from 17 Bantam-level hockey players who had suffered concussions, compared to an age-matched control of non-concussed athletes.

Robert Bartha, PhD, professor at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry and a scientist at Robarts Research Institute, found similar results while studying the female varsity rugby team at Western University. “What we found is that players who had suffered a concussion during the season had a large reduction in the level of a metabolite called glutamine,” said Bartha. By looking at baseline measures of the athletes, he and his team also demonstrated that a regular season of play can cause changes in the brain that are similar to changes caused by concussion, though less severe.

Dr. Michael Strong, dean at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, and a team of researchers were able to link head trauma to tau phosphorylation in the brain, uncovering a common neurobiological pathway which underlies both Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

CTE is a fatal neurodegenerative disease shown to be a result of repeated concussions and is associated with elite athletes involved in contact sports. “The key is that for the first time, we’ve provided a window into the pathway by which the pathology for both CTE and the variant of ALS that causes cognitive impairment occurs and begins the critical trail of finding a treatment,” said Dr. Strong.

Dr. Walter Siqueira, Eric Arts, PhD, and their research group were the first in the world to identify Zika virus in saliva using proteomics.

By analyzing the saliva of a pregnant mother infected with Zika, and her twins — one born with microcephaly and one without — they were able to pinpoint the specific protein signature for Zika that is present in saliva, which can be an effective way to screen for exposure.

With 70 countries and territories having reported evidence of mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission, there was an increased need for a rapid and effective test for the virus. The diagnostic test used by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention used blood tests to look for changes to Ribonucleic Acid (RNA), but it is able to detect the virus only up to one week after exposure. Because proteins are more stable than RNA, saliva proteomics opened the window of detection to more than 20 days after exposure.

The researchers have received a provisional US patent to develop a simple device that can be used to identify Zika virus peptides in saliva outside of the laboratory.