Measurable Brain Changes Following Head Impacts From a Season of High School Football

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Repeated impacts to the heads of high school football players cause measurable changes in their brains, even when no concussion occurs, according to research from UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute and Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Researchers gathered data from high school varsity players who donned specially outfitted helmets that recorded data on each head impact during practice and regular games. They then used experimental techniques to measure changes in cellular microstructure in the brains of the players before, during, and after the season.

“Our findings add to a growing body of literature demonstrating that a single season of contact sports can result in brain changes regardless of clinical findings or concussion diagnosis,” said senior author Dr. Joseph Maldjian, Chief of the Neuroradiology Division and Director of the Advanced Neuroscience Imaging Research Lab, part of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern.

The findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge and study about concussions and other types of brain injury by researchers with the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute. Among them:

  • In the first study of its kind, former National Football League (NFL) players who lost consciousness due to concussion during their playing days showed key differences in brain structure later in life. The hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, was found to be smaller in 28 former NFL players as compared with a control group of men of similar age and education.
  • A study examining the neuropsychological status of former National Football League players found that cognitive deficits and depression are more common among retired players than in the general population.
  • CON-TEX includes one of the nation’s first registries of concussion patients ages 5 and older to capture comprehensive, longitudinal data on sports-related concussion and mild traumatic brain injury patients.
  • The Texas Institute for Brain Injury and Repair (TIBIR), a state-funded initiative to promote innovative research and education in traumatic brain injury, includes a comprehensive Concussion Network that delivers expert brain injury education to coaches, school nurses, athletic trainers, and parents about the risks of sports-related injuries.