The Longitudinal Neurophysiological Adaptation of a Division I Female Lacrosse Player Following Anterior Cruciate Rupture and Repair: A Case Report.
Robert Mangine, Jim Tersak, Thomas Palmer and 5 others
PMID 37020442WHAT IT FOUND
One athlete's brain activity showed high stress and asymmetry right after ACL injury, then normalized by nine months alongside physical recovery.
This tracks a single person's healing. It does not prove brain monitoring guides safe return to sport.
Key findings
01Brain hemispheric asymmetry was dysregulated immediately post-injury and at one month, but returned to a regulated state with only a 2% difference by nine months.
02Cognitive workload and attention metrics were elevated beyond normal levels immediately following injury and progressively decreased over time.
03Reaction times improved significantly across the nine-month period while accuracy remained constant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
This is a single case report, so the findings may not apply to other patients. There was no pre-injury baseline, so it is impossible to know if the nine-month results truly returned to her normal state. The authors state that the link between the brain metrics and physical function is not proven to be causal. The study did not include a control group or comparison to other athletes.
Declared interests
The project received no outside funding and was completed by the University of Cincinnati Sport Science Research Team.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that brain monitoring tools like qEEG can currently guide return-to-play decisions. This is a single case without a pre-injury baseline, and the authors explicitly state that more research is needed to support a causal relationship between these neurological metrics and physical function.