Repeated Head Injuries Playing Football can Alter Brain function in High Schoolers

Recently, many studies have covered the effects of concussions and head injuries on high school children. A new research says that even non-serious head injuries while playing sports can alter the brain development in adolescents.

The research says that repeated head injuries not leading to concussions while playing football can change the brain functions in young people.

The brains of athletes repeatedly hit on the head showed abnormal changes , according to the study author, Dr Christopher Whitlow, an associate professor at the Radiology Translational Science Institute at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"It's not the harder the hit, it's the cumulative exposure to impact," said Whitlow, according to Health Day

 The researchers observed  24 high school football players ages 16 to 18 years. They were made to wear an accelerometer (on the helmet) to measure how often and hard they were hit during the games.

None of the players had ever suffered a concussion. Based on the data collected the participants were divided as heavy hitters, 9 , and light hitters, 15 of the group.

A diffusion tensor imaging (DTI),  which maps the brain, was used to gauge changes in the white matter of the players' brains. The nerve fibres in the white matter communicate the commands to the various parts of the brain through water movement  known as fractional anisotropy or FA  and the DTI measures the movement.

Slowness of water movement and FA  indicate brain abnormalities. The researchers noticed  that the hard hitting group showed lower FA scores and slow movement of water by the end of the season with concomitant changes in certain brain areas.

"Even though this type of impact doesn't qualify for a diagnosis of concussion because there was no loss of consciousness or specific complaints, it's very likely that multiple hits are not benign,"  said  Dr. Robert Stevens, an associate professor in the division of neuroscience critical care at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, reports Health Day. "We can speculate that any amount of brain damage isn't good, but the risky part is that changes are not likely to be dramatic."

The changes are subtle involving concentration or memory lapses.

The researchers want parents and coaches to be more aware of the dangers of such injuries and seek medical attention. They clarify that they are in no way advising against playing such sports.

The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neurotrauma