Bellini, Zachary S.Recht, Grace O.Zuidema, Taylor R.Kercher, Kyle A.Sweeney, Sage H.Steinfeldt, Jesse A.Kawata, Keisuke2025-06-182025-06-182024-05-31Bellini ZS, Recht GO, Zuidema TR, et al. Association of Auditory Interference and Ocular-Motor Response with Subconcussive Head Impacts in Adolescent Football Players. Neurotrauma Rep. 2024;5(1):512-521. Published 2024 May 31. doi:10.1089/neur.2023.0125https://hdl.handle.net/1805/48872The aim of this study was to examine whether neuro-ophthalmological function, as assessed by the King-Devick test (KDT), alters during a high school football season and to explore the role of auditory interference on the sensitivity of KDT. During the 2021 and 2022 high school football seasons, football players' neuro-ophthalmological function was assessed at five time points (preseason, three in-season, postseason), whereas control athletes were assessed at preseason and postseason. Two-hundred ten football players and 80 control athletes participated in the study. The year 1 cohort (n = 94 football, n = 10 control) was tested with a conventional KDT, whereas the year 2 cohort (n = 116 football, n = 70 control) was tested with KDT while listening to loud traffic sounds to induce auditory interference. There were improvements in KDT during a season among football players, regardless of conventional KDT (preseason 53.4 ± 9.3 vs. postseason 46.4 ± 8.5 sec; β = -1.7, SE = 0.12, p < 0.01) or KDT with auditory interference (preseason 52.3 ± 11.5 vs. postseason 45.1 ± 9.5 sec; β = -1.7, SE = 0.11, p < 0.001). The degree of improvement was similar between the tests, with no significant group-by-time interaction (β = -0.08, SE = 0.17, p = 0.65). The control athletes also improved KDT performance at a similar degree as the football cohorts in both KDT conditions. Our data suggest that KDT performance improves during a season, regardless of auditory interference or head impact exposure. KDT performance was not impacted by a noisy environment, supporting its sideline utility for screening more severe forms of injury.en-USAttribution 4.0 InternationalTraumatic brain injuryConcussionNeuro-ophthalmologic functionOcular-motorKing–DevickSubconcussive head impactsArticle