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Football hits to the head not resulting in concussions also cause brain injury

Football is an inherently dangerous sport. Football players routinely sustain injuries on various areas of their bodies and have the shortest playing career of the 4 major North American sports at 3.5 years. A major source of these injuries, some of which are career ending, are head injuries that cause concussions; a concussion occurs when the brain slams against the skull. Concussions are slowly being recognized for the danger they carry in football, but it turns out that major brain injury can still occur even without a concussion occurring.

In a study published in August of 2019, researchers found major brain injury in players who had concussions and even those who didn’t. 38 players from the University of Rochester men’s football team in 2011, 2012 and 2013 wore accelerometers in their helmets to measure the severity and direction of hits sustained. They also had their brain’s white matter structural integrity measured using fractional anisotropy (FA). FA measures where water molecules diffuse. Changes to the direction of movement of water molecules allows researchers to determine what changes or damage occurred in the players’ white matter.

White matter is a part of the central nervous system that is made up of myelinated, or coated, axons that send information to other brain cells, called neurons. White matter functions as relay system that communicates with different parts of the brain and connects everything together. Damage to white matter negatively impacts the brain’s communicative abilities.

Stock photo of football players from Pexels

The results from the study showed an overall decrease in the integrity and density of midbrain white matter across a football season. Even after accounting for 2 players that sustained concussions, the results stayed the same. It was also found, using the accelerometer data, that the severity of the drop in FA scores increased with hits the rotated a player’s heads, rather than head on ones. These results show that impact to the head, especially hits that rotate the head, can cause brain damage by affecting white matter, even though a concussion does not occur.

These results represent an existential problem that has been building for football: how can you fix an inherently dangerous sport? If routine hits cause brain injury, how can you eliminate these hits in a sport that is built on tackling? One solution, that may appear contradictory on the surface, is to eliminate helmets in the sport. Helmets only protect against skull fractures and do a terrible job of protecting against other head injuries. The American 7s Football League, or the AF7L, already implements this variation on the sport. Elimination of helmets leads to better tackling form as defenders can’t rely on hitting the offensive player in the head, as the surface area for contact is greatly reduced.

Free photo of a football helmet from Pixabay

Currently, however, football carries many risks associated with it that players, parents and coaches must weigh against potential rewards the sport may provide. Ball may be life, but maybe trading in your football for a basketball will be better for your brain.

Written by Kuljit Grewal