Audio: In the Study of Concussion, a New Frontier of Research

Since 2004, Kevin Guskiewicz and his researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have embedded sensors in the helmets of the university’s football players to measure the impact of the hits they absorb on the field.Dan Sears, UNC-Chapel Hill

Until recently, experts believed that 300,000 people a year suffered sport-related concussions. But research moves quickly these days in the realm of head injuries: Those who study this common—but complex—condition now know that far more athletes get concussions. The latest annual estimate? Up to 3.8-million.

Kevin M. Guskiewicz is one researcher who has been at the vanguard of efforts to better understand the complicated nature of concussions. For nearly two decades, Mr. Guskiewicz, who is chair of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s department of exercise and sport science and holds a Ph.D. in sports medicine, has focused his work on understanding the injury. He has affixed devices into the helmets of football players at North Carolina to measure the force of impact of the hits they absorb on the field. He has authored a half-dozen textbook chapters and dozens of journal articles on the subject. And he advises amateur and professional sports organizations—including the National Collegiate Athletic Association—on proper management of concussions among athletes.

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But for all the answers Mr. Guskiewicz and other researchers have uncovered, the injury still remains a bit of a mystery: The threshold at which a blow to the head or upper body causes a concussion is still unknown. Symptoms of the injury, meanwhile, can vary greatly. So do recovery times and the long-term effects on athletes’ brains.

There is, in short, a lot left to learn. The Chronicle recently spoke with Mr. Guskiewicz about the next frontier of research into sport-related concussions, including the healing potential of omega-3 fatty acids and whether athletes’ genetic makeup or gender can make them more susceptible to concussion.

Mr. Guskiewicz says looking at concussions through the lens of athletics has proved to be an invaluable scientific opportunity.

“We’ve learned an awful lot,” Mr. Guskiewicz told The Chronicle. “The sport setting has been described as a laboratory to help us better understand this injury.”