...to induce brain changes related to head impacts. A recent study showed that professional soccer players who had not gotten a concussion still showed signs of traumatic brain injury, most likely from frequent, unprotected headers. (Source: http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/13/study-soccer-players-without-concussions-still-have-brain-changes/#ixzz2CA6pIuz7)
What exactly are these "changes" in the brain? Are they necessarily bad?
The study found differences in the white matter of the brain, which includes nerves and their myelin coatings. These componenets are crucial to forming networks necessary for cognition.
Scans were done on 10 professional soccer players who had never had concussions and compared to those of 10 competitive swimmers. The researchers used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which is on the
microscopic level and is better at showing white matter changes than
MRI.
The article reminds us that the study has limitations. Concussions have yet to be clinically defined. More studies need to be done looking at specific ages. Professional athletes may not report having had a concussion since it's not in their career interest.
But how would more knowledge of the extent of traumatic brain injury caused by frequent head impacts affect the sports world? It seems like a pain for both refs and athletes to try to put safety limitations in place, such as mandatory time out of a game after some number of hits.
And would regulations or limitations cause reports of concussions or less severe impacts to be understated, leading to risking health for the sake of preserving one's eligibility? (For an analogy, consider how alcohol poisoning reports at Penn might change without the alcohol amnesty policy...)
For now, I suppose the best we can do is to try to figure out how extensive and or harmful these white matter changes can actually be.
No comments:
Post a Comment