Publications by authors named "Tiina Laitala"

Background: Concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries that often cause vision problems. They have significant impacts on everyday life, cognitive capacity, and sports performance, and may affect injury prevalence in fast contact sports such as ice hockey. A functional vision questionnaire specifically designed for sports was used here to study the correlation between vision problems and concussion history.

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Fracture healing is a complex process with multiple overlapping metabolic and differentiation phases. Small non-coding RNAs are involved in the regulation of fracture healing and their presence in circulation is under current interest due to their obvious value as potential biomarkers. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have been characterized to some extent but the current knowledge on tRNA-derived small RNA fragments (tsRNAs) is relatively scarce, especially in circulation.

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Long-bone fracture is a common injury and its healing process at the fracture site involves several overlapping phases, including inflammation, migration of mesenchymal progenitors into the fracture site, endochondral ossification, angiogenesis and finally bone remodelling. Increasing evidence shows that small noncoding RNAs are important regulators of chondrogenesis, osteogenesis and fracture healing. MicroRNAs are small single-stranded, non-coding RNA-molecules intervening in most physiological and biological processes, including fracture healing.

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Objective: In sports concussion research, the importance of an individualized approach incorporating neuropsychological assessment data has been emphasized. This study examined the impact of acute signs of concussion on post-injury cognitive functioning using reliable change methodology in a sample of Finnish, elite-level, youth ice hockey players.

Methods: From a sample of 1,823 players (all male, 14-20 years old) who completed preseason baseline testing with the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT®) battery, two subgroups were identified.

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