Molly Coventry APAM is a Perth-based physiotherapist who began her career working with athletes.

Over the years she has taken on some research roles through her honours supervisor, Dr Myles Murphy MACP, which led to her starting her own PhD, looking at neural drive to the calf muscle complex.

‘My project, funded by the PRF, looks at neurophysiological changes that occur in the brain and nervous system after a muscle or tendon injury such as a calf strain, hamstring strain, hamstring tendinopathy or Achilles tendinopathy,’ says Molly.

‘These sorts of injuries are very common in sportspeople, particularly in AFL, soccer and rugby, and can take players out of the game for a long time.’

Once players have experienced such an injury, they then have an increased risk of recurrence.

‘This is why we want to explore whether there’s anything happening in the brain—and in the brain’s ability to activate a muscle after an injury—that could be contributing to another injury down the track or people not rehabbing well,’ says Molly.

The research will involve two main assessments: one being voluntary activation which involves electrical stimulation of a nerve to see how well the brain is able to drive a muscle and the second involving transcranial magnetic stimulation, looking at the facilitatory and inhibitory pathways of the brain and examining how well the motor cortex functions after an injury.

‘Through these assessments, we’re looking to see if the ability to maximally drive a muscle is lower after an injury and if the brain is working differently to drive the muscle,’ says Molly.

‘Another possibility is that with acute tendon and muscle injuries, the brain might not change but with chronic conditions like osteoarthritis or anterior cruciate ligament injuries, that might be when the changes in the brain happen.

'Regardless of the outcome, it should tell us a lot and help to shape where future research should go.’

For physiotherapists, this research could provide a greater understanding of what happens in the brain following a muscle or tendon injury.

Molly says, ‘Knowing that someone who’s had a calf or hamstring strain has these deficits in their neural drive could help with deciding when they should go back to play or when they should move on to the next rehab milestone.

'The majority of recurring injuries in the calf happen before or just after people return to play.

'This could be due to the brain not being able to activate the muscle yet, which means that pushing back return to play could help reduce injury recurrence rates.’

The PRF Seeding Grant will help Molly to complete her research in a number of ways.

‘A lot of the grant money will go towards employing people to help me recruit subjects and collect the data,’ says Molly.

‘It was very exciting to receive the grant; I was pretty stoked.

'Seeding Grants are also important in that they help you progress to bigger grants, where you’re applying against more experienced researchers, so I’m very grateful to receive one.’

This Seeding Grant is supported by PRF corporate partner ASICS.

Course of interest:

• Module 8 Hamstring (+/-tendinopathy) and VMO