Sports Medicine – Headballs Injury Women Particularly – Health

• US doctors show that head shots in women lead to greater changes in brain structure than in men.
• One of the reasons could be that players' neck muscles are less able to cushion the impact

landing on the skull, this is not a joy for tens of millions synapses and neurons in the brain. The impact of the head ball causes the projection of the gray-white substance into its solid bone sheath, and the nerve connections are exposed to heavy loads. For years, doctors have discovered more and more how harmful vibrations are. US doctors now show in the journal Radiology that in women the corresponding changes in brain structure are more intense than in men.

The team around radiologist Michael Lipton examined 49 men and 49 women involved in amateur football are active. Participants in both groups reported playing a similar number the previous year – on average more than 460 -. Using a nuclear spin technique that makes tissue structures more visible, it became clear that the consequences for the bades were different: women had larger and more intensely affected areas in which the brain structure was changed

reactions biological after traumatic effects on the brain, "says Todd Rubin, the lead author of the study. Overall, radiologically documented abnormalities in athletes were five times more pronounced; especially the white matter was altered. Microstructural changes were found in women in eight different brain regions, in men only in three

First tissues change, years later threaten cognitive deficits

"Doctors and scientists have long known that women are worse off than men" , says Michael Lipton Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "This was partly due to their greater willingness to report their complaints." Due to the detailed magnetic resonance images of the kickers, a different image emerges. "We found objective changes in brain tissue and we did not raise any subjective complaints," says Lipton. "Women therefore suffer from head trauma rather than men."

Why head balls according to FIFA's world of 30 million women who leave more significant traces in the brain substance than in men, is not clear. In addition to genetic and hormonal factors, it is badumed that the neck muscles are not so pronounced and that the brain is shaken more violently in case of external violence.

Physicians point out that their findings are in imaging and are not clinically relevant. the subjects up to now have no cognitive limitation. However, parallels can be found with typical brain damage, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which occurs frequently in athletes and veterans of the army after repeated brain tremors. "First of all, there are subclinical cues and changes in brain structure before it's serious functional failures," Lipton says.

The authors are skeptical that the ball game can be completely removed. But as the damage increases cumulatively and the nerve fibers wear out at each impact, a limitation would make sense. After all, there is no need to play with the head of every goalkeeper who lands at high altitude near the center line. If this persists, cerebral play may suffer in the long run.