LIMBIC military and tactical athlete research study: making lemonade 101.

ABSTRACT

The Long-term Impact of Military-relevant Brain Injury Consortium-Military and Tactical Athlete Research Study (LIMBIC MATARS) program established in 2020 is comprised of 22 universities and health systems across the United States. The LIMBIC MATARS Consortium's goal is to increase understanding of the complexities of concussion in collegiate athletes by leveraging extant retrospective and novel prospective data sets through the application of innovative research designs. The manuscripts in this special issue represent findings from clinical data sets based on consensus-derived common data elements collected from the 2015-2016 to 2019-2020 sport seasons that include 1311 cases of collegiate athletes diagnosed with concussion. Using these data, LIMBIC MATARS investigators addressed hypotheses that included (1) factors, including access to athletic trainers, biological sex, and ADHD, that may influence recovery from concussion, (2) predisposing risks associated with reinjury after return-to-sport, such as sport type, and (3) therapeutic targets for intervention including language barriers, physical activity, return-to-learn, and sleep. This commentary introduces the methodology and 10 descriptive studies highlighting initial findings from the Consortium.