The Effect of Muscle Activation on Head Kinematics During Non-injurious Head Impacts in Human Subjects
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Annals of Biomedical Engineering ( 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-020-02609-7
Original Article
The Effect of Muscle Activation on Head Kinematics During Non-injurious Head Impacts in Human Subjects KRISTEN A. REYNIER,1 AHMED ALSHAREEF,1 ERIN J. SANCHEZ,2 DANIEL F. SHEDD,1 SAMUEL R. WALTON,3 NICHOLAS K. ERDMAN,3 BENJAMIN T. NEWMAN,4 J. SEBASTIAN GIUDICE,1 MICHAEL J. HIGGINS,3 JAMES R. FUNK,2 DONNA K. BROSHEK,5 THOMAS J. DRUZGAL,4 JACOB E. RESCH,3 and MATTHEW B. PANZER 1 1
Center for Applied Biomechanics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; 2Biocore, LLC, Charlottesville, VA, USA; 3 Department of Kinesiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; 4Department of Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; and 5Neurocognitive Assessment Lab, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA (Received 24 March 2020; accepted 2 September 2020) Associate Editor Joel Stitzel oversaw the review of this article.
Abstract—In this study, twenty volunteers were subjected to three, non-injurious lateral head impacts delivered by a 3.7 kg padded impactor at 2 m/s at varying levels of muscle activation (passive, co-contraction, and unilateral contraction). Electromyography was used to quantify muscle activation conditions, and resulting head kinematics were recorded using a custom-fit instrumented mouthpiece. A multi-modal battery of diagnostic tests (evaluated using neurocognitive, balance, symptomatic, and neuroimaging based assessments) was performed on each subject pre- and post-impact. The passive muscle condition resulted in the largest resultant head linear acceleration (12.1 ± 1.8 g) and angular velocity (7.3 ± 0.5 rad/s). Compared to the passive activation, increasing muscle activation decreased both peak resultant linear acceleration and angular velocity in the cocontracted (12.1 ± 1.5 g, 6.8 ± 0.7 rad/s) case and significantly decreased in the unilateral contraction (10.7 ± 1.7 g, 6.5 ± 0.7 rad/s) case. The duration of angular velocity was decreased with an increase in neck muscle activation. No diagnostic metric showed a statistically or clinically significant alteration between baseline and post-impact assessments, confirming these impacts were non-injurious. This study demonstrated that isometric neck muscle activation prior to impact can reduce resulting head kinematics. This study also provides the data necessary to validate computational models of head impact. Keywords—Muscle activation, Head kinematics, Injury prevention, Volunteer testing.
Address correspondence to Matthew B. Panzer, Center for Applied Biomechanics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. Electronic mail: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION Over the past three decades, concussion has emerged as a leading health concern among the athletic and medical communities. Many factors have been suggested to predispose athletes to a concussion, including prior history of concussion, sport type, biological sex, and a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder.17,19,20,27 From a broad biomechanical perspec
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