New research from Flinders University highlights the importance of sleep quality in the recovery process following sports-related concussions, a frequent form of mild traumatic brain injury.
The study was published in Nature and Science of Sleep and led by sleep researcher Dr. David Stevens.
The study demonstrated improvements in sleep, such as longer sleep duration, improved sleep efficiency, and extended deep sleep, in the eight weeks following a concussion.
These findings lend weight to previous animal studies showing that enhanced sleep supports brain injury recovery. Sleep could thus be a key indicator of the brain attempting to repair itself post-concussion.
Deep sleep is known to lead to neural plasticity and activate the glymphatic system, which removes amyloid-β and τ-proteins associated with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive and fatal brain disease linked to repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions.
The study involved athletes who experienced a sports-related concussion and underwent overnight sleep studies within seven days of the injury (acute stage) and again eight weeks later (sub-acute stage).
The results indicate better sleep in participants with a concussion compared to the general population. Moreover, sleep appeared to improve further eight weeks after the concussion.
Dr. Stevens believes that the observed sleep improvement may be an attempt by the brain to self-heal.
He calls for more research in a larger population to investigate this hypothesis and other neurophysiological and neurocognitive measures to examine whether changes in sleep during concussion recovery result in changes to other aspects of head trauma.
Stevens also advocates for better research in concussion-related areas and urges players, clubs, and organizations to treat concussion not as a minor injury but a clinical issue with potentially worse ramifications than any dislocation or fracture.
Maya Rigter, a former SANFLW player, shared her experience recovering from three concussions, the last of which forced her to retire.
The decision, driven by the significant risk another concussion posed to her future health and professional medical career, had a substantial impact on her life, particularly cognitive abilities affecting her university studies.
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The study was published in Nature and Science of Sleep.
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