HoWon Kim
At the 2022 ACL Research Retreat, HoWon Kim presented findings based on collaborative work with Emory University. The study aimed to determine the brain activity related to sagittal and frontal plane knee joint coordination during a bilateral leg press task in adolescent female athletes. This research project aimed to shed light on the relationship between the central nervous system and movement coordination during the bilateral leg press task.
HoWon discovered that poor coordination was associated with lower brain activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This result suggests the possibility of underlying supraspinal disruptions in adolescent female athletes, which could contribute to coordination issues and potentially impact injury risk.
Amber Schnittjer
Amber presented a project titled "Asymmetric Sensorimotor Brain Activity during Knee Motor Control in Patients with ACLR". The main takeaway is that results suggested a potential shift in cortical organization to maintain knee motor control after ACLR.
Meredith Chaput
Byrnadeen Farraye
Byrnadeen presented preliminary findings from a larger longitudinal study that evaluated single-hop for distance performance in high school athletes and injury prevalence. The purpose of the preliminary study was to determine the changed in single-leg hop performance and symmetry from pre-injury to return to play (RTP) following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Current RTP guidelines measure functional performance in relation to the contralateral limb, however functional deficits have been shown to occur bilaterally after lower extremity injuries.
Individuals after ACLR experienced similar limb symmetry from pre-injury to RTP, however deficits in single leg hop distance were significantly decreased in both limbs. This suggests that using the contralateral limb to suggest injury recovery may overestimate function and it may be more beneficial to use pre-injury data or normative data to track complete functional recovery following ACLR.