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Updated: Aug 14, 2026
A Novel Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury for Juvenile Rats
Published on: December 8, 2014
Visuomotor response time in children with a mild traumatic brain injury
Isabelle Gagnon1, Bonnie Swaine, Debbie Friedman
1Ecole de réadaptation, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Isabelle.gagnon6@sympatico.ca
Insights
Children with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) showed slower response times compared to healthy peers up to 12 weeks post-injury. Further research is needed to understand the impact on physical activity participation.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric neurology
- Neuroscience
- Sports medicine
Background:
- Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is common in children.
- Visuomotor responses are crucial for daily activities and sports.
- Understanding the long-term effects of mTBI on motor skills is important.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare visuomotor response times in children with mTBI to those in noninjured children.
- To assess the persistence of response time deficits following mTBI.
Main Methods:
- Prospective cohort study involving 38 children (aged 7-16) with mTBI and 38 matched noninjured controls.
- Visuomotor response times were assessed using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP) at 1, 4, and 12 weeks post-injury.
- Evaluated reaction time and movement time for upper and lower extremities across simple, choice, and reversed choice paradigms.
Main Results:
- Children with mTBI performed significantly worse on the BOTMP response speed subtest compared to controls throughout the study period.
- A trend towards slower lower extremity movement times was observed in mTBI children at 1 week post-injury for the reversed choice paradigm.
- No significant differences were found in other response time measures between groups.
Conclusions:
- Some children may experience persistent visuomotor response time deficits up to 12 weeks after mTBI.
- Further investigation is warranted to determine the severity and impact of these deficits on physical activity participation.
- Early identification and intervention strategies may be beneficial for affected children.
Objective:
Compare the visuomotor response times of children after a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) with those of noninjured children matched for age, sex, and premorbid level of physical activity.
Design:
Prospective cohort study.
Setting:
Pediatric trauma center.
Participants:
Thirty-eight children aged 7 to 16 years in each group. Children with mTBI had a mean Glasgow Coma Scale score of 14.8 and were considered normal on a neurological assessment carried out at the time of hospital discharge. Noninjured children were friends of those with mTBI.
Intervention:
Assessments of response time were conducted at 1, 4, and 12 weeks after mTBI and at corresponding time intervals for the control children.
Main Outcome Measures:
The response speed subtest of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP); reaction and movement time for upper and lower extremities, for simple, choice, and reversed choice response time paradigms.
Results:
Over the assessment period, children with mTBI performed worse than the control group only on the response speed subtest of the BOTMP. The mTBI children however tended to have slower movement times 1 week postinjury for the reversed choice response time paradigm for the lower extremities.
Conclusions:
Some children with mTBI may have some problems in response time persisting until 12 weeks postinjury. Further research is required to better identify and understand the severity of these problems and determine their impact, if any, on participation in physical activities.
