It turns out that football isn’t as harmless as people thought — and I can only imagine what rugby (a vicious sport played without protective gear) has done to my brother’s brain! According to Forbes, a new study, presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) this week, followed 24 players on a high school football team. Wired up with sensors in their helmets, the players were subjected to various tests to analyze their brain’s white matter — the the extensions of the nerve cells that connect cells to one another.
What the study found was that players who’d experienced head impacts during the season had changes in both white matter and brain waves. Different kinds of changes corresponded to different kinds of hits. The team observed that there was a “dose dependent” relationship between hits and brain changes — the greater number of hits, the more changes were observed.
“We saw changes in these young players’ brains on both structural and functional imaging after a single season of football,” said Elizabeth Moody Davenport, Ph.D, in a statement about the study. Davenport is the researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, who spearheaded this analysis.
“It’s important to understand the potential changes occurring in the brain related to youth contact sports,” Dr. Davenport added. “We know that some professional football players suffer from a serious condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. We are attempting to find out when and how that process starts, so that we can keep sports a healthy activity for millions of children and adolescents.”
To read the full piece, head over to Forbes. After doing so, let us know what you think in the comments below. Of course, the sample size was small at only 24, but if you’re a parent, would this research make you reconsider enrolling your child in contact sports? And if you play or played football, what do you think about this study?
Source: Forbes
The thing about rugby is the players actually tackle with better and “safer” technique because they DON’T have protective gear…. No one’s gonna be leading with their head without a helmet on.
You are right about that! Are you a first time commenter on this site? If so, I’m wondering how you got to this article. Thanks!
Yea, I’m a first time commenter but my no means a stranger to Weartesters! I visit the site just about everyday and read any interesting articles even if it’s not about performance sneakers. So I guess you can say you guys are my one stop shop when it comes to performance sneaker websites haha!
Thank you! We appreciate your support!
Pretty sad about the head injury issue with football since it’s such a cool sport. Nowadays, even the pros are calling it quits in fear of sustaining too many concussions.
Brain trauma is some serious ****. I played football at 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. A month after my final season, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. This was back in 1991. The surgery was severe. Its been almost 26 years since, but the team effect was tremendous. I loved playing football, but I’m really iffy on it now. Hopefully they’ll find a way to make the impact less.
DAMN. We appreciate you sharing your story. The brain is so fragile, but I’m excited to see if there is anything science can innovate that will make contact sports safer.