Predictors of Brain Injury: The Performance of Biomechanical Head Acceleration Severity Metrics for Concussion Prediction in Men’s and Women’s Rugby League Players
Rattachement africain : gb, ca, us, ie, Afrique du Sud, au. Niveau de preuve : code pays fourni par la source.
Le résumé fourni par la source
Abstract Objective Describe and compare the biomechanical severity of head acceleration events (HAEs) associated with diagnosed concussion in elite men’s and women’s rugby league using instrumented mouthguards (iMGs) and evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and screening performance of severity metrics within the current Head Injury Assessment (HIA) process. Methods A prospective cohort of 398 men and 252 women from Super League teams wore iMGs across 515 matches. Following a matching and data quality screening procedure, 123 HIAs (106 men, 17 women) were matched to HAEs, 52 of which were diagnosed concussions (44 men, 8 women). High-magnitude asymptomatic control HAEs (22,676 men, 3,200 women) were sampled proportionally to the number of HIAs. A range of biomechanical severity metrics were calculated for HAEs. Statistical comparisons between outcomes were made. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis evaluated diagnostic accuracy (ability to predict diagnosed concussions within the HIA). Precision-recall analysis evaluated screening performance (ability to discriminate observable concussion signs from asymptomatic events). Results Diagnosed concussions had greater severity than asymptomatic HAEs across all metrics in both sexes. For diagnostic accuracy, area under the ROC curve ranged from 0.61 to 0.72 in men and 0.53 to 0.86 in women. For screening performance, optimal thresholds in several metrics provided theoretical improvements to precision over current thresholds used in rugby, but recall remained <0.20. Conclusion These findings support integrating iMG-derived severity metrics into a multimodal, clinician-led HIA pathway as objective adjuncts for diagnosis and screening, while reinforcing that they cannot replace clinical judgement or other assessment modalities. What is already known on this topic Instrumented mouthguards are increasingly used in rugby to quantify head acceleration events and trigger Head Injury Assessment (HIA) alerts, but current screening thresholds based on simple peak kinematics have low sensitivity for identifying HAEs linked with visible concussion signs, and very few iMG-measured concussions, particularly in women, have been reported in current research. What this study adds This study provides the largest dataset of iMG-measured concussions in any sport, shows that concussive HAEs are more severe than asymptomatic events across multiple biomechanical metrics in both sexes, and identifies several severity metrics with diagnostic accuracy comparable to existing HIA sub-tests and modest theoretical improvements over current screening thresholds. How this study might affect research, practice or policy These findings support incorporating iMG-derived severity metrics as objective adjuncts within clinician-led HIA pathways, highlight the need for sex-inclusive iMG datasets and multimodal concussion identification, and may inform future refinement of iMG screening thresholds in elite rugby and other contact sports.
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Le contrôle bibliographique ouvert
DOI retrouvé dans Crossref DOI retrouvé ; titre concordant.
- Titre Crossref
- Predictors of Brain Injury: The Performance of Biomechanical Head Acceleration Severity Metrics for Concussion Prediction in Men’s and Women’s Rugby League Players
- Date Crossref
- 13/08/2026
- Éditeur
- openRxiv
- Type
- posted-content
Ce recoupement confirme des métadonnées liées au DOI. Il ne confirme ni la méthode ni les conclusions de l’étude, et il ne compte pas comme une seconde source scientifique indépendante.
Où se fait cette recherche
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Leeds Beckett University Carnegie Applied Rugby Research (CARR) Centre pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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The Football Association pays non établi dans la noticeOrganisation à but non lucratif
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University of Leeds pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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University of British Columbia pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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Worcester Polytechnic Institute Department of Biomedical Engineering pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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Virginia Tech pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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World Rugby pays non établi dans la noticeInstitution
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University of Cape Town University of Cape Town, Afrique du Sud (code pays fourni par la source)Université ou école supérieure
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Australian Catholic University pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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England Performance Unit pays non établi dans la noticeInstitution
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School of Biomedical Sciences pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
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Faculty of Medicine Department of Mechanical Engineering pays non établi dans la noticeUniversité ou école supérieure
Carnegie Applied Rugby Research (CARR) Centre — Leeds Beckett University, The Football Association et University of Leeds, avec 9 autres affiliations. Pays d’affiliation : Afrique du Sud.
Une affiliation ne permet pas de déduire la nationalité d’un auteur.