Coupling Between Cognitive and Motor Function following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

PURPOSE: Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) causes deficits in motor and cognitive function. There is a dearth of research examining the association between these deficits. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effect of mTBI on the coupling between cognitive and motor function. METHODS: Thirty-six individuals completed a neurocognitive test battery and postural control assessment at baseline and 24-hours post physician diagnosed mTBI. Reaction time and accuracy to various cognitive tasks was accessed. Postural control was indexed with the somatosenory organization test. This test allows for the decomposition of postural control resulting from the integration of visual, somatosensory and vestibular information. Coupling between cognitive and motor function was assessed with correlational analyses. RESULTS: As expected, mTBI resulted in prolonged simple and choice reaction time performance as well as deficits in verbal and visual memory. mTBI was also found to reduce overall postural control, especially when visual information was utilized. Prior to injury correlational analyses indicated there was no association between cognitive and motor function - suggesting minimal cognitive-motor coupling. Following injury significant positive correlations between an individual's cognitive function and their postural sway were observed - indicating increased cognitive-motor coupling. CONCLUSIONS: These longitudinal findings suggest that a transient neural insult, such as mTBI, leads to increased cognitive-motor coupling. These findings support the proposal that a shared neural process, such as visuospatial attention, is impaired following injury and results in deficits in both cognitive and motor function.