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A new study on high school football players suggests that a necklace could help protect the brain from head shocks during a competitive football season.
"In sports, we focus a lot on big shots to the head that could lead to what is subjectively referred to as a" concussion, "said Greg Myer, director of sports medicine research at Cincinnati. Children & # 39; s and senior author of the study. "What we really wanted to look at now, is the cumulative effect of exposure to the head for a whole season." The evidence shows that the cumulative impact of head impacts is potentially more worrying than that. "
The cervical collar, called Q-Collar, is designed to gently press the jugular vein to slow down blood flow, thereby increasing the blood volume of the brain during competitive play. The resulting effect is that the blood fills the brain vessel, like an airbag, to help the brain tighten further into the cranial cavity, thereby reducing the energy absorbed by the brain during collisions.
The study, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, focused on cumulative sub-concussion impacts on the head that alter the white matter structure of the brain. In soccer, it can come from a shot in the head, a collision with another player or a difficult fall.
"White matter is essentially a structural pathway that connects all the information and signal processing centers of the brain that provide normal function," said Myer.
Myer and her colleagues studied 46 football players in high school, while 24 of them wore a Q-Collar. The 46 athletes underwent neuroimaging at a maximum of three times over a six-month period. This included the three-month soccer season and the three-month rest period after the season, with no exposure to head impacts. The impacts on the head were followed with the help of accelerometers (a computer chip) placed behind the left ear during training and games.
Neuroimaging analysis revealed significant changes in white matter from before and after season in those who did not wear the collar. No significant changes were found in those wearing the collar, despite a similar number and magnitude of impacts to the head.
The imaging performed three months after the end of the football season showed that the white matter changes in the group of non-collars had been partially resolved or resumed their normal course.
"Certainly, we know that the benefits of playing football in female athletes far outweigh the risks we see and this is an important message we need to remember from this study," said Myer.
Previous studies involving Q-Collar have focused on male hockey and football players and have also shown a significant protective effect of repeated sub concussion impacts.
"This could be a paradigm shift in the way we study the brain and protect it internally against head exposure," said Myer. "We need to continue to conduct broader studies with diverse populations and as we move forward in research, we will learn more about the effectiveness of this approach in protecting the brain."
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