TY - JOUR
T1 - A preliminary model of football-related neural stress that integrates metabolomics with transcriptomics and virtual reality
AU - Vike, Nicole L.
AU - Bari, Sumra
AU - Stetsiv, Khrystyna
AU - Walter, Alexa
AU - Newman, Sharlene
AU - Kawata, Keisuke
AU - Bazarian, Jeffrey J.
AU - Martinovich, Zoran
AU - Nauman, Eric A.
AU - Talavage, Thomas M.
AU - Papa, Linda
AU - Slobounov, Semyon M.
AU - Breiter, Hans C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
PY - 2022/1/21
Y1 - 2022/1/21
N2 - Research suggests contact sports affect neurological health. This study used permutation-based mediation statistics to integrate measures of metabolomics, neuroinflammatory miRNAs, and virtual reality (VR)-based motor control to investigate multi-scale relationships across a season of collegiate American football. Fourteen significant mediations (six pre-season, eight across-season) were observed where metabolites always mediated the statistical relationship between miRNAs and VR-based motor control (pSobelperm ≤ 0.05; total effect > 50%), suggesting a hypothesis that metabolites sit in the statistical pathway between transcriptome and behavior. Three results further supported a model of chronic neuroinflammation, consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction: (1) Mediating metabolites were consistently medium-to-long chain fatty acids, (2) tricarboxylic acid cycle metabolites decreased across-season, and (3) accumulated head acceleration events statistically moderated pre-season metabolite levels to directionally model post-season metabolite levels. These preliminary findings implicate potential mitochondrial dysfunction and highlight probable peripheral blood biomarkers underlying repetitive head impacts in otherwise healthy collegiate football athletes.
AB - Research suggests contact sports affect neurological health. This study used permutation-based mediation statistics to integrate measures of metabolomics, neuroinflammatory miRNAs, and virtual reality (VR)-based motor control to investigate multi-scale relationships across a season of collegiate American football. Fourteen significant mediations (six pre-season, eight across-season) were observed where metabolites always mediated the statistical relationship between miRNAs and VR-based motor control (pSobelperm ≤ 0.05; total effect > 50%), suggesting a hypothesis that metabolites sit in the statistical pathway between transcriptome and behavior. Three results further supported a model of chronic neuroinflammation, consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction: (1) Mediating metabolites were consistently medium-to-long chain fatty acids, (2) tricarboxylic acid cycle metabolites decreased across-season, and (3) accumulated head acceleration events statistically moderated pre-season metabolite levels to directionally model post-season metabolite levels. These preliminary findings implicate potential mitochondrial dysfunction and highlight probable peripheral blood biomarkers underlying repetitive head impacts in otherwise healthy collegiate football athletes.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123125916&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85123125916&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103483
DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103483
M3 - Article
C2 - 35106455
AN - SCOPUS:85123125916
SN - 2589-0042
VL - 25
JO - iScience
JF - iScience
IS - 1
M1 - 103483
ER -