Objective Compare behavioral and neuroelectric performance within three variants of the traditional Go/NoGo task among symptomatic (HCx-S) and asymptomatic (HCx-A) individuals with a concussion history, as well as non-injured controls (HC-).

Design Cross-Sectional.

Setting College University in Southeastern United States.

Participants Sixty-one participants (HC-, n = 23, age = 22.1 ±2.8; HCx-A, n = 16, age = 21.4 ±2.3; HCx-S, n = 22, age = 21.1 ±2.7). HCx-A and HCx-S were classified based on symptom reporting and were on average 1232.9- and 694.4-days post injury, respectively.

Outcome Measures Participants completed three variants of a Go/NoGo task: 1. Discrete Button (DB); 2. Discrete Reach (DR); and 3. Continuous Reach (CR). Stimulus-locked ERP components (N2 and P300) were computed from continuous EEG collected during each task.

Main Results HCx-S individuals demonstrated significantly worse task performance within both the DB and CR task variants, compared to HCx-A and HC- (p’s < 0.01). Neuroelectric analyses revealed that within the DB variant individuals with a history of concussion exhibited prolonged N2 and P300 latencies. However, a reduction in P3 amplitude was observed only in HCx-S individuals compared to HC-. Within both the DR and CR variants, both HCx-A and HCx-S individuals exhibited prolonged P3 latency compared to HC-.

Conclusions Our results demonstrate that symptomatic individuals following concussion demonstrate persistent deficits in cognitive performance and neuroelectric function. Furthermore, behavioral deficits are exacerbated when task parameters were modified to reflect real-world interactions. However, neuroelectric differences tended to be more robust during the discrete task variants.