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THURSDAY, Nov. 29, 2018 (HealthDay News) – It is becoming increasingly clear that football is changing the brains of teenage players, but not in the right direction.
In a new study, researchers examined the MRI of 26 12-year-old boys playing football.
Comparing the MRI taken just before the football season and then three months later, the analyzes revealed that the boys had changes in a large area of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's a band of nerve fibers that connects and helps to "integrate" functions between the two halves of the brain.
The brain scans of football players were also compared to those of a "witness" group of 22 boys who did not play football.
Clear differences have been observed, according to researchers who presented the results Thursday at the annual meeting of the North American Radiology Society (RSNA) in Chicago.
"The years from 9 to 12 years are very important for brain development," said Jeongchul Kim, lead author of the study, from the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC.
"The functional regions of the brain begin to integrate with each other, and players exposed to repetitive brain damage, even if their impact is low, could be at risk," he said.
"The body of the corpus callosum is a unique structure that looks like a bridge connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain," said Kim. "When it will be subjected to external forces, some areas will contract and others will grow, such as when a bridge is twisted by the wind."
Thus, the new study suggests that repeated blows to the head – as can happen in difficult moments of football – could be at the origin of the brain changes observed in these young players.
Nevertheless, the study is inconclusive and further research is needed to confirm that repeated beatings in football and other sports involving young people could result in changes in the shape of the corpus callosum during this critical period of brain development, said Kim.
Similar results were reported Monday in another RSNA meeting study. In this study, researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared pre- and post-season MRI scans of 60 boys ages 9 to 18 playing football.
These researchers found an increase in the amount of gray matter in the brain of young people that had a significant impact, but no concussion, during the season.
More gray brain tissue indicates that the brain might not work as well as it could be, explained the study's author, Gowtham Krishnan Murugesan.
An expert who directly observed the effects of brain trauma agreed that young people may not have needed a complete concussion to be neurologically altered by head impacts.
Although the sample size in the Wake Forest study is small, "this demonstrates that structural changes in the brain actually develop in children who experience recurrent, subconcussive impacts, without immediate symptoms of concussion. such as dizziness, headache or nausea, "said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
"It is essential that parents are aware of the unknown long-term neurological risks after unconscious access to the head involved in contact sports by children," he said.
Glatter also pointed to other research, according to which some children might be more vulnerable to these brain changes than others, depending on their individual genetics.
Glatter believes that identifying the most vulnerable children "will be essential for choosing the most at-risk children when practicing contact sports."
In any case, children are not just "little adults" with regard to head impacts and their effects on the brain, he said.
"Because children grow and develop, they are more likely to undergo changes in key structural areas, such as the corpus callosum, which is important for thinking, reasoning and motor functions between the right and left sides of the body. brain, "said Glatter. .
Research presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are more concerned with concussion among young people.
SOURCES: Robert Glatter, MD, Emergency Physician, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York; Radiology Society of North America, press release of November 29, 2018
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