Sport-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) elicits a multifaceted inflammatory response leading to brain injury and morbidity. This response could be a predictive tool for the progression of TBI and to stratify the injury of which mild TBI is most prevalent. Therefore, we examined the differential expression of serum inflammatory markers overtime and identified novel markers in repetitively concussed athletes. Neuropsychological assessment by Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and Immediate Post Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Test (ImPACT) was performed on rugby players and serum was taken from healthy, concussed and repetitively concussed athletes. Serum was also obtained <1 week and >1 week after trauma and analyzed for 92 inflammatory protein markers. Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) and interleukin-7 (IL-7) differentiated repetitively concussed athletes. Macrophage chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), tumor necrosis factor superfamily member 14 (TNFSF14) were significantly reduced >1 week and chemokine (C-X3-C motif) ligand 1 (CX3CL1) upregulated <1 week after injury. FGF21 and MCP-1 negatively correlated with symptoms and their severity. We have identified dynamic changes in the inflammatory response overtime and in different classes of concussion correlating with disease progression. This data supports the use of inflammatory biomarkers as predictors of symptom development due to secondary complications of sport-related mTBI. mTBI can be defined as head trauma resulting in either memory loss or altered neurological function up to a day following the traumatic ictus or loss of consciousness for under 30 min [5]. A large proportion of mTBI consists of sport-related concussive (SRC) injury with up to 3.8 million cases reported in the United States annually [6]. There is also a greater risk of these athletes experiencing repetitive concussions which has been associated with the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Neurocognitive tests have been developed to diagnose concussion. However, these assessments are expensive, subject to bias due to lack of appropriate baselines and have not yet demonstrated efficacy as prognostic tools [16][17][18].Difficulties in developing tools for the prediction of progressive pathology in TBI are confounded by the variability in the anatomical location, extent of the mechanical injury to the brain, as well as the multitude of biological response mechanisms involved. TBI is broadly characterized by 2 phases [19,20]. Immediately after impact, the primary phase is associated with shearing and tearing of neural and vascular brain structures and enhanced permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Within minutes start the secondary phase, where danger-associated molecular pattern (DAMPs) molecules are released from damaged cells which stimulate the Toll-like receptor (TLR) [21]. Cytokines and chemokines are also released leading to the recruitment of microglia a...