AUT and Abbott have launched a pioneering female athlete concussion study. Photo / Thinkstock
Auckland University of Technology has launched a world-leading initiative aimed at addressing the long-standing neglect of medical research on female athletes.
Through a multi-year collaboration with global healthcare technology company Abbott, the university is tackling critical issues related to concussions and women’s health.
This pioneering programme will compare the blood profiles of healthy athletes with those who have recently suffered a concussion, advancing the potential for more accurate diagnosis and management of head injuries in sport.
AUT Professor of Human Performance Patria Hume told the Herald this research will be game-changing given a historical shortfall regarding women’s health studies.
“Most of the research is based on men, so we really need more research on women.
“We need to understand the hormonal cycles and how that affects our sports performance. And in this case, if you have a concussion, are you more susceptible to concussion at various parts of your menstrual cycle, and does it affect how you recover from a concussion?”
AUT’s latest study highlights a critical gap in current concussion diagnoses, which often overlook gender-specific differences. Research shows female athletes not only face a higher risk of concussion but also experience and recover from brain trauma differently from their male counterparts.
To address this, AUT’s SPRINZ biochemistry lab – situated at the heart of New Zealand’s elite sports science hub – is launching a cutting-edge platform called the Architect ci4100. This technology will detect signs of concussion from blood.
By identifying brain proteins, the platform could transform how concussions are diagnosed and managed, especially for female athletes.
“We know that females tend to have more severe symptoms and their recovery takes longer,” Hume said.
“So with the [historical] research being based on males, we want to understand the differences between males and females for concussion risk and also recovery.”
Dr Beth McQuiston, senior medical director at Abbott and head of global neuroscience research, told the Herald it’s a common misconception that men experience more concussions than women. In reality, female athletes suffer concussions at rates two to four times higher than their male counterparts in the same sports.
“That frequently goes unrecognised and unreported,” McQuiston said.
“For this study, there’s a particular focus on women athletes, and why we’re doing that is that when you look at the literature, people typically study male athletes. Female athletes and brain injury have not been well studied.
“We want to make this big, and we want to look at it from every angle.
“We’re going to look at the brain proteins, we’re also going to be looking at inflammatory markers, vitamin markers, vitamin D, and also, we’ll be looking at the neuroendocrine.
“We’ll be looking at estrogen levels and progesterone levels, and we’re going to be correlating all of that with performance, brain injury, and recovery.
“Our hope is that we’ll be looking at prevention [for concussion].”
The physician, neurologist and registered dietitian said women are more susceptible to concussions than men for three main reasons.
The muscles surrounding a woman’s head are weaker compared with men. Therefore, when contact or whiplash occurs, there’s less support.
Women’s brains are built differently from men’s and have more connections across our corpus callosum.
“You hear the joke that women can multitask, and men can do one thing at a time,” McQuiston said, “Well, there’s science behind that.
“We may have more connections or cross streets, but they can be more fragile under injury.”
High levels of estrogen or progesterone can make a major difference in how severely a woman is injured.
“We know that the same injury with different hormonal levels has a different result, and this just has never been studied before until now, and that’s exactly what we’re going to look at,” McQuiston said.
McQuiston told the Herald this new machinery offers a rapid and minimally invasive tool for objective assessments of the brain and its injury.
“If you imagine a piñata and you hit the piñata and the candy falls out, we measure the candy. That’s what we’re doing, but in this case, the candy would be brain proteins.
“Normally, when you do blood tests, your brain protein should be low – your brain proteins should be in your brain – they shouldn’t be measurable to a high degree in your blood.
“If your brain proteins are elevated, it serves as a warning bell that something is going on, for further evaluation.”
McQuiston, based in Chicago, is hopeful this study will achieve major success.
“It’s going to be world-leading. The world is watching this type of study has never been done before, and really, New Zealand is the centre of the neuroscience universe.
“We know that the greatest amount of concussions, the highest rate, is right here in New Zealand, and it’s being tracked really well.
“[New Zealanders] have a high rate of concussions from activity, and your health system cares and follows everybody in a holistic way, so what our hope is, is to really understand what’s happening in women.
“We are more than half the population, we need to know this so that we can course correct.
“Ultimately, the best injury is no injury. So if we can find out that if a certain sport is played a certain way or you follow certain protocols, you decrease your chance of injury, fantastic.”
Recruitment for study participants has begun. For information about the studies and to learn how to get involved, visit the Women’s Health and Neuroscience Research Programme.
Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She was named New Zealand’s Best Up and Coming journalist in 2025. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Fever podcast and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.