ConTex Study

CON-TEX Registry Study

Concussion has become an important topic and public health concern in recent years, yet much remains to be learned about concussion diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. While much concussion research has focused on sport-related injuries in youth and young adults, concussions affect individuals of all ages and occur in a wide variety of activities outside sport. The ConTex research team is dedicated to furthering the field's knowledge about concussions.

North Texas Concussion Registry (ConTex)*

Across Texas, there is growing awareness of concussion or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) across the lifespan. Though knowledge gained through research has grown substantially over the past few decades, much remains to be learned about this condition that affects at least 4 million Americans annually.

brain imaging

The clinic-based ConTex study is designed to capture comprehensive longitudinal data on sports-related concussions and other mTBI across the lifespan, with an emphasis on adolescent sport-related injuries. In addition to answering important research questions about various risk- and recovery-related factors, the information gathered will serve as the foundation on which the design of rigorous clinical research and evaluation of treatments will be built. Individuals enrolled in the registry will have the opportunity to participate in future clinical trials testing innovative therapies and diagnostic approaches.

ConTex is a collaborative effort among UT Southwestern Medical Center, Children's Health℠ Children's Medical Center Dallas, and Scottish Rite for Children. ConTex is a partner in The Four Corners Youth Consortium (4CYC), a nationwide multicenter concussion registry that includes The Sports Institute© (University of Washington Medicine), Seattle Children's Hospital, UCLA, and Children's National Medical Center (Washington, DC).

*ConTex is supported by TIBIR (Texas Institute for Brain Injury and Repair) as part of the Peter J. O'Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center as well as a gift from the David M. Crowley Foundation.

Participating sites

UT Southwestern Medical Center
  • UT Southwestern Frisco Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
  • James W. Aston Ambulatory Care Center University Hospital Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic
Children's Health
  • Children's Pediatric Group at Plano Pediatric Headache and Concussion Program
  • Children's HealthSM Specialty Center Cityville Neuro-Concussion Clinic
    • 2222 Medical District Drive Suite 210, Dallas, TX 75235
    • 844-414-6824
  • Children's HealthSM Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine
Scottish Rite for Children
  • Scottish Rite for Children Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center

ConTex and the UIL: A Statewide Initiative

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Network, Texas has more student athletes than any other state (NFHS, 2018-2019), with 825,924 student athletes across boys' and girls' sports. The incidence of sports-related concussion across the state is unknown, and there is a need to obtain this information in order to track trends, improve safety, and better understand and treat concussion among school-age youth participating in sports.

child with head injury

In July 2015, the Texas Legislature's Sunset Advisory Commission adopted a management action (nonstatutory) directing collaboration between the University Interscholastic League (UIL) and UT Southwestern (SUNSET TEXAS, 2015) [1]:

"…As a management action, direct UIL to immediately take all proactive steps to commence establishing a collaborative relationship with UT Southwestern Medical Center's Texas Institute for Brain Injury and Repair, a state-funded initiative to promote innovative research and education, with the goals of accelerating translation into better diagnosis and revolutionizing care for millions of people who suffer brain injuries each year…"
Representative Four Price, Vice Chair – Sunset Advisory Commission

The ConTex-UIL registry (ConTex2) is a quality improvement project that constitutes the first step toward the development of one of the first statewide concussion registries in the United States. The goal of this project is to develop a database designed to capture information about concussion injuries from athletes participating in all UIL schools. This database will allow for reporting of statistics related to concussion across the state of Texas to the UIL, monitoring of concussion trends over time, and set the stage for future research questions to be addressed.

All Texas schools participating in the UIL are encouraged to report concussion data, and as of 2019, the UIL mandated concussion reporting to ConTex2 for all 6A UIL-participating schools. ConTex2 data collection is through a collaboration with RankOne Sport and can serve as a model for other states, as well as for the Concussion Surveillance System proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, placing Texas at the forefront of this important movement to study concussion and enhance youth sports safety across the country.