Dustin Grooms

Ohio University · Department of Biological Sciences

Synopsis: The neuroplastic effects of anterior cruciate ligament injury have recently become more evident, demonstrating underlying nervous system changes in addition to the expected mechanical alterations associated with injury. Interventions to mitigate these detrimental neuroplastic effects, along with the established biomechanical changes, nee...

Study Design Controlled laboratory study. Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury may result in neuroplastic changes due to lost mechanoreceptors of the ACL and compensations in neuromuscular control. These alterations are not completely understood. Assessing brain function after ACL injury and reconstruction with functional magnetic res...

Objective: To determine if a low cost smartphone based, clinically applicable virtual reality (VR) modification to the standard Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) can challenge postural stability beyond the traditional BESS. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: University research laboratory. Participants: 28 adults (mean age 23.36 ± 2.3...

Context: A limiting factor for reducing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk is ensuring that the movement adaptions made during the prevention program transfer to sport-specific activity. Virtual reality provides a mechanism to assess transferability and neuroimaging provides a means to assay the neural processes allowing for such skill t...

Background and purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the consistency of a novel MR safe lower extremity motor control neuroimaging paradigm to elicit reliable sensorimotor region brain activity. Methods: Participants completed multiple sets of unilateral leg presses combining ankle, knee, and hip extension and flexion movements agains...

Background Central nervous system (CNS) function after ACLR, quantified by the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response, is altered in regions of sensory function during knee movement after ACLR. However, it is unknown how this altered neural response may manifest in knee loading and response to sensory perturbations during sport specific movem...

Introduction: Military duties require immense cognitive-motor multitasks that may predispose soldiers to musculoskeletal injury. Most cognitive challenges performed in the research laboratory are not tactical athlete specific, limiting generalizability and transferability to in-field scenarios. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact...

Background Injury and reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) result in central nervous system alteration to control the muscles around the knee joint. Most individuals with ACL reconstruction (ACLR) experience kinesiophobia which can prevent them from returning to activity and is associated with negative outcomes after ACLR. However, it...

Dynamic postural stability paradigms with virtual reality (VR) provide a means to simulate real-world postural challenges and induce customised but controlled perturbations. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a VR unanticipated perceptual sport perturbation on postural stability compared to traditional methods. Sixteen indivi...

Background Females have an increased incidence of musculoskeletal injuries compared to males. Sex differences in neuromuscular control has been widely studied regarding the dynamics and muscle activity during preplanned movements. While muscle activation patterns and movement biomechanics are understood to differ between sexes, it is not well under...

Bilateral sensorimotor coordination is required for everyday activities, such as walking and sitting down/standing up from a chair. Sensorimotor coordination functional neuroimaging (fMRI) paradigms (e.g., stepping, cycling) increase activity in the sensorimotor cortex, supplementary motor area, insula, and cerebellum. Although these paradigms are...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk reduction strategies primarily focus on biomechanical factors related to frontal plane knee motion and loading. Although central nervous system processing has emerged as a contributor to injury risk, brain activity associated with the resultant ACL injury-risk biomechanics is limited. Thus, the purposes...

Context: The etiology of patellofemoral pain has remained elusive, potentially due to an incomplete understanding of how pain, motor control, and kinesiophobia disrupt central nervous system functioning. Objective: To directly evaluate brain activity during experimental knee pain and its relationship to kinesiophobia in patients with patellofemo...

Objectives To develop and evaluate the reliability of a new visual-cognitive medial side hop (VCMH) test that challenges physical and cognitive performance to potentially improve return to sport testing. Design Test-retest experimental design. Setting Laboratory. Participants Twenty-two healthy college students participated (11 females; 23.5 ± 3...

Background High injury rates following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) motivate the need to better understand lingering movement deficiencies following return to sport. Athletic competition involves various types of sensory, motor, and cognitive challenges; however, postural control deficiencies during this spectrum of conditions a...

Objective To examine the evidence of neural activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), corticospinal excitability, and other central nervous system measurement differences during motor tasks between those with and without knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Methods A scoping review strategy was systematically performed. We searched PubMe...

Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common knee injury among athletes and physically active adults. Despite surgical reconstruction and extensive rehabilitation, reinjuries are common and disability levels are high, even years after therapy and return to activity. Prolonged knee dysfunction may result in part from unresolved ne...

Context Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury commonly occurs via non-contact motor coordination errors resulting in excessive multiplanar loading during athletic movements. Preventing motor coordination errors requires neural sensorimotor integration activity to support knee joint neuromuscular control, but the underlying neural mechanisms drivi...

Context Neuromuscular training (NMT) facilitates the acquisition of new movement patterns that reduce ACL injury risk; however, the neural mechanisms underlying these changes are unknown. Objective Determine the relationship between brain activation and biomechanical changes following NMT with biofeedback. Study Design Controlled Laboratory Study...

Virtual reality (VR) can be used to alter the environment and challenge sensory calibration which rehabilitation and return-to-sport testing lack. The purpose was to establish how VR manipulation of the environment changes knee landing biomechanics. Twenty-nine healthy active adults (22 males; 20.52 ± 1.21 years; 1.75 ± 0.09 m; 78.34 ± 14.33 kg) we...

To determine the association between cortical activity and postural control performance changes with differing soma- tosensory perturbations. Healthy individuals (n = 15) performed a single-limb balance task under four conditions: baseline, unstable surface (foam), transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) applied to the stance-limb knee,...

Objectives To identify the neural substrates of a clinician-based test and associated pain perception in young female athletes with patellofemoral pain (PFP). Design Cross-sectional. Methods Females with PFP (n = 14; 14.3 ± 3.2 yrs) completed a patella displacement test during brain functional magnetic resonance imaging. The neuroimaging protocol...

Background Approximately 35% of individuals over age 70 report difficulty with mobility. Muscle weakness has been demonstrated to be one contributor to mobility limitations in older adults. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of brain-predicted age difference (an index of biological brain age/health derived from structura...

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries commonly occur when attention is simultaneously on the environment (other players, objects) and maintaining neuromuscular control. Therefore, our purpose was to investigate lower-extremity coordination following ACLR during a run-to-cut with ecological validity to sport competition. Sixteen male basketball...

Objectives Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common knee injury among athletes and physically active adults. Despite surgical reconstruction and extensive rehabilitation, reinjury rates remain high and patient-reported disability continues even years after therapy and return to activity. Prolonged knee dysfunction has been attributed, i...

Context: Proprioception is an individual's awareness of body position in 3-dimensional space. How proprioceptive acuity changes under varying conditions such as joint position, load, and concentric or eccentric contraction type is not well understood. In addition, a limitation of the variety of techniques to assess proprioception is the lack of cl...

Current best practices to direct recovery after sports-related concussion (SRC) typically require asymptomatic presentation at both rest and during a graduated exercise progression, and cognitive performance resolution. However, this standard of care results in a significantly elevated risk for musculoskeletal (MSK) injury after return-to-sport (RT...

Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is defined as retro-or peri-patellar knee pain without a clear structural abnormality. Unfortunately, many current treatment approaches fail to provide long-term pain relief, potentially due to an incomplete understanding of pain-disrupted sensorimotor dysfunction within the central nervous system. The purposes of this stu...

Introduction Multitasking typically requires an individual to simultaneously process cognitive information while performing a motor task. Cognitive motor interference (CMi) is encountered when cognitive challenges negatively impact motor task performance. Military personnel encounter cognitively taxing situations, especially during combat or other...

Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries predominantly occur via non-contact mechanisms, secondary to motor coordination errors resulting in aberrant frontal plane knee loads that exceed the thresholds of ligament integrity. However, central nervous system processing underlying high injury-risk motor coordination errors remain unknown,...

Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is secondary to a multifactorial etiology encompassing anatomical, biological, mechanical, and neurological factors. The nature of the injury being primarily due to non-contact mechanics further implicates neural control as a key injury-risk factor, though it has received considerably less study....

Background Aberrant frontal and sagittal plane knee motor control biomechanics contribute to increased anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk. Emergent data further indicates alterations in brain function may underlie ACL injury high risk biomechanics and primary injury. However, technical limitations have limited our ability to assess direct...

Background Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is a chronic knee condition that inhibits movement quality and can cascade into kinesiophobia (i.e., fear of pain/movement). Despite its high prevalence in adolescent girls, PFP etiology has remained elusive, potentially due to an incomplete understanding of how pain, motor control, and kinesiophobia interact wi...

Background Despite surgical reconstruction and extensive rehabilitation, persistent quadriceps inhibition, gait asymmetry, and functional impairment remain prevalent in patients after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. A combination of reports have suggested underlying central nervous system adaptations in those after injury govern long-term...

Despite the efforts of many traditional lower extremity injury prevention programs (IPP), the incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in young athletes continues to rise. Current best practices for IPPs include training lower extremity neuromuscular control and movement quality during cutting, jumping, and pivoting. Emerging evidence indic...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears are common traumatic knee injuries causing joint instability, quadriceps muscle weakness and impaired motor coordination. The neuromuscular consequences of injury are not limited to the joint and surrounding musculature, but may modulate central nervous system reorganization. Neuroimaging data suggest patients...

Background To better understand the neural drivers of aberrant motor control, methods are needed to identify whole brain neural correlates of isolated joints during multi-joint lower-extremity coordinated movements. This investigation aimed to identify the neural correlates of knee kinematics during a unilateral leg press task. New Method The curr...

Visual‐cognitive ability has previously been associated with anterior cruciate ligament injury and injury‐risk biomechanics in healthy athletes. Neuroimaging reports have identified increased neural activity in regions corresponding to visual‐spatial processing, sensory integration, and visual‐cognition in individuals after ACL reconstruction (ACLR...

# Background Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury prevention interventions have used trained experts to ensure quality feedback. Dyad (peer) feedback may be a more cost-effective method to deliver feedback to athletes. # Purpose To determine the immediate effects of dyad versus expert feedback on drop landing kinematics and kinetics in female...

Background : The regulation of muscle force is a vital aspect of sensorimotor control, requiring intricate neural processes. While neural activity associated with upper extremity force control has been documented, extrapolation to lower extremity force control is limited. Knowledge of how the brain regulates force control for knee extension and fle...

Youth athletes are ideal candidates for novel therapeutic motor learning interventions that leverage the plasticity of the central nervous system to promote desirable biomechanical adaptions. We summarize the empirical data supporting the three pillars of the Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning (OPTIMAL) t...

Background: Symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (KOA) manifests with progressive articular cartilage damage resulting in morphological changes and muscle dysfunction. This peripheral joint disease has deleterious effects on the function of the central nervous system. However, minimal is known about the effects of KOA on the central nervous system durin...

Background: Emergent linkages between musculoskeletal injury and the nervous system have increased interest to evaluate brain activity during functional movements associated with injury risk. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a sophisticated modality that can be used to study brain activity during functional sensorimotor control task...

Independent Component Analysis-based Automatic Removal of Motion Artifacts (ICA-AROMA; Pruim et al., 2015) is a robust approach to remove brain activity related to head motion within functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets. However, ICA-AROMA requires command line implementation and customized code to batch process large datasets. We...

Persistent gait alterations can occur after concussion and may underlie future musculoskeletal injury risk. We compared dual-task gait stability measures among adolescents who did/did not sustain a subsequent injury post-concussion, and uninjured controls. Forty-seven athletes completed a dual-task gait evaluation. One year later, they reported spo...

There are numerous physical, social, and psychological benefits of exercise, sport and play for youth athletes. However, dynamic activities come with a risk of injury that has yet to be abated, warranting novel therapeutics to promote injury-resistance and to keep an active lifestyle throughout the lifespan. The purpose of the present manuscript wa...

The capacity to move is essential for independence and declines with age. Slow movement speed, in particular, is strongly associated with negative health outcomes. Prior research on mobility (herein defined as movement slowness) and aging has largely focused on musculoskeletal mechanisms and processes. More recent work has provided growing evidence...

Youth may be particularly responsive to motor learning training strategies that support injury-resistant movement mechanics in youth for prevention programs that reduce injury risk, injury rehabilitation, exercise performance, and play more generally (Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning Prevention Rehabili...

Current recommendations for return-to-play decision-making involve comparison of the injured limb to the uninjured limb. However, the use of the uninjured limb as a comparison for hop testing lacks empirical evidence. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of lower extremity injury on limb symmetry and performance on the singl...

Regaining full range of motion, strength, and cardiovascular endurance are important components of any rehabilitation program but may not be enough to address the neurological adaptations brought on through injury. The adoption of motor learning principles into current rehabilitation protocols may have a significant impact on athletes returning to...

Investigations on movement quality deficits associated with jump landing are numerous, however, these studies are often performed in laboratories with little distraction to the participant. This is contrary to how injury typically occurs secondary to sport-specific distraction where the athlete is cognitively loaded during motor performance. Thus,...

Objective Determine the effect of visual-based motor and cognitive dual tasking on postural stability in those with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) relative to matched controls. Design Cohort study Methods Fourteen volunteers with history of ACLR were matched with fourteen healthy controls (CON). Participants performed single leg...

The purpose of this study was to quantify head motion between isometric erector spinae (ES) contraction strategies, paradigms, and intensities in the development of a neuroimaging protocol for the study of neural activity associated with trunk motor control in individuals with low back pain. Ten healthy participants completed two contraction strate...

Context: The sensory organization test (SOT) is a standard for quantifying sensory dependence via sway-referenced conditions (sway-referenced support and sway-referenced vision [SRV]). However, the SOT is limited to expensive equipment. Thus, a practical version of the SOT is more commonly employed-the clinical test for sensory integration in bala...

Objective: To compare cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) measurements obtained during gait between adolescents who sustained a diagnosed concussion within 14 days of assessment and healthy adolescents. Design: Cross-sectional. Methods: Youth athletes with concussion (n=43, age=14.4±2.3 years, 56% female, tested median 7 days post-...

Context: Although the beneficial effects of using an external focus of attention are well documented in attainment and performance of movement execution, neural mechanisms underlying external focus' benefits are mostly unknown. Objective: To assess brain function during a lower-extremity gross motor movement while manipulating an internal and ex...

Anterior cruciate ligament injury may induce neurophysiological changes for sensorimotor control. Neuroimaging investigations have revealed unique brain activity patterns for knee movement following injury, indicating potential neural mechanisms underlying aberrant neuromuscular control that may contribute to heightened risk of secondary injury, al...

Postural sway is significantly affected by a mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, and myriad methods have been developed to quantify the severity of concussion symptoms. The current manuscript quantifies postural sway—as measured by an inertial sensor—in youth athletes with concussion (n = 43, age = 14.4 ± 2.3 years, 56% female, tested media...

Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are debilitating for athletes. While numerous motor and biomechanical deficits contribute to the inciting ACL injury mechanism, the limited knowledge about the underlying neural drivers of these deficits has impeded intervention development to reduce ACL injury rates. A prospective investigation...

Background Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is a chronic knee condition that affects over 1 in 4 physically-active girls. PFP symptomology contributes to dysfunctional motor control and heightened kinesiophobia (i.e., fear of pain/movement). Both chronic pain and kinesiophobia induce substantial changes throughout the central nervous system (CNS) in many...

Prospective evidence indicates that functional biomechanics and brain connectivity may predispose an athlete to an anterior cruciate ligament injury, revealing novel neural linkages for targeted neuromuscular training interventions. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a real-time biofeedback system for altering knee biomechan...