• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Football: Even “minor” hits can cause brain damage

November 1, 2010 by Dr. Pascale Michelon

Today the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN) “is call­ing for any ath­lete who is sus­pect­ed of hav­ing a con­cus­sion to be removed from play until the ath­lete is eval­u­at­ed by a physi­cian with train­ing in the eval­u­a­tion and man­age­ment of sports concussion.”

At the same time, an arti­cle in Sports Illus­trat­ed reports a new study in which Pur­due researchers put sen­sors (accelerom­e­ters) in the hel­mets of 23 seniors from Jef­fer­son High in Lafayette, Ind. Results are sur­pris­ing and con­cern­ing: Hits that do not even lead to con­cus­sions can have a much big­ger impact on the brain than we thought.

What are concussions?

Con­cus­sions (or mild trau­mat­ic brain injury) are the most com­mon type of trau­mat­ic brain injury. They involve a head injury with a tem­po­rary loss of brain function.

The brain is sur­round­ed by cere­brospinal flu­id, one of the func­tions of which is to pro­tect it from trau­ma. How­ev­er this cush­ion is not always enough in sit­u­a­tions involv­ing severe impacts or mere­ly the forces asso­ci­at­ed with rapid acceleration.

The most com­mon symp­tom of con­cus­sions is headache. Oth­er symp­toms include dizzi­ness, nau­sea, lack of motor coor­di­na­tion, dif­fi­cul­ty bal­anc­ing, visu­al symp­toms, and ring­ing in the ears.

Con­cus­sions can cause a vari­ety of phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, and emo­tion­al symp­toms. Symp­toms usu­al­ly go away with­in a few weeks, with­out treat­ment. How­ev­er they may per­sist, or com­pli­ca­tions (such as demen­tia) may occur. No spe­cif­ic treat­ment exists.

Foot­ball and concussions

Some sports such as foot­ball are par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent and many play­ers do suf­fer con­cus­sions. This prob­lem is well-known at the Nation­al Foot­ball League (NFL). In July the NFL dis­trib­uted a new poster to teams that warns of the dan­gers from con­cus­sions in much explic­it and harsh­er lan­guage than the league had pre­vi­ous­ly used.

The NFL also man­dates that a play­er suf­fer­ing from a con­cus­sion should stop play­ing if after a hit he can’t car­ry on a coher­ent con­ver­sa­tion or remem­ber the last play …

The new study

What about hits to the brain that do not lead to concussions?

The Pur­due study report­ed in Sports Illus­trat­ed this week and to be pub­lished soon in Jour­nal of Neu­ro­trau­ma in part answers this ques­tion. The 23 young play­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the  study took both the ImPACT test (a com­put­er­ized test assess­ing mem­o­ry and con­cen­tra­tion skills) and tests of work­ing mem­o­ry while their brains were  scanned using func­tion­al MRI.  Work­ing mem­o­ry is the abil­i­ty that allows us to hold infor­ma­tion cur­rent in our mind for the task at hand.

Eleven out of 23 of the play­ers were test­ed again at mid­sea­son. Only 3 had suf­fered con­cus­sions. Of the 8 who had not suf­fered con­cus­sions, 4 nonethe­less showed signi?cant impair­ment in visu­al mem­o­ry. In terms of brain activ­i­ty these 4 play­ers showed a decline in the activ­i­ty of the dor­so­lat­er­al pre­frontal cor­tex (just behind the fore­head) dur­ing the visu­al mem­o­ry task.

The play­ers whose visu­al mem­o­ry was the most impaired “were not com­ing from the con­cussed group but from a group that in the week pre­ced­ing the test had tak­en a large num­bers of hits—around 150—mostly in the 40 to 80 G range.”

The good news is that after 9 months off from foot­ball, the impaired play­ers returned to their base­line scores in the Impact test.

Con­clu­sions

The new Pur­due find­ings sug­gest that even hits not lead­ing to con­cus­sions can affect the brain. Although the results come from a very small num­ber of play­ers and will have to be repli­cat­ed, they are quite concerning.

The study involved young high-school play­ers whose brain is not mature yet. Their brain is thus still very plas­tic and seem to recov­er quick­ly, after a few month with­out foot­ball. But what about old­er play­ers’ brains that may have less abil­i­ty to com­pen­sate for blows?

Pre­vi­ous stud­ies have linked repeat­ed con­cus­sion to Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (MCI) and demen­tia. For instance, Guskiewicz et al (2005) have found that retired pro­fes­sion­al play­ers (aver­age age of 53.8 years and an aver­age foot­ball career of 6.6 years) with three or more report­ed con­cus­sions have a five­fold preva­lence of MCI diag­no­sis com­pared with retirees with­out a his­to­ry of con­cus­sion. Retirees also an ear­li­er onset of Alzheimer’s dis­ease com­pared to the gen­er­al Amer­i­can male population.

The effects of con­cus­sions, though usu­al­ly short last­ing a the time of the blow,  thus have long-term con­se­quences. What about the long-term effects of those oth­er vio­lent hits that do not lead to con­cus­sions? Future research will tell.

Head injury is list­ed by the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion as one of the risk fac­tors for the dis­ease that we can influ­ence. If play­ing foot­ball (or any oth­er vio­lent sport) has to be part of one’s life, aware­ness of the poten­tial dan­gers and look­ing for alter­na­tives strate­gies (sure­ly cel­e­bra­to­ry hel­met-knocks can be avoid­ed?) seem worth a try!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Alzheimers-risk, American-Academy-of-Neurology, brain-concussions, cognitive-health, football-players, neuroplasticity, sports-related-concussions, Working-memory

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. trijicon says

    November 4, 2010 at 9:26

    Some very inter­est­ing information!!

    I am very glad that the NFL has tak­en a firm stance and tack­led (no pun intend­ed) this issue head on (again no pun intended).

    It real­ly is a shame to see for­mer ath­letes in such ter­ri­ble men­tal con­di­tion after they stop playing…

  2. Christina Acton says

    November 13, 2010 at 7:17

    Could­n’t agree more with Tri­ji­con… The NFL is tak­ing a stance on these types of hits and they should. The play­ers need to be pro­tect­ed! How­ev­er, it can be quite sad to see the for­mer ath­letes and the lack of sup­port they are get­ting from the NFL. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that is why we might see a strike next year.

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,620 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy