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Soccer Headers May Cause Brain Damage

Posted by: denton In: News, Research 20 Jun 2014 0 comments

BY ERIC NIILER

Real Madrid’s superstar English player David Beckham heads the ball during a game at Sport city in Madrid, Spain, in 2003.

A new study of long-time adult soccer players has found changes in the brain similar to traumatic brain injury as a result of repeated “headers” of the ball. The study also found an association between players who had repeatedly headed, and slight memory loss.

“What we are seeing are the effects of lifetime exposure of adults in their late 20s, 30s and early 40s who have been playing since they were kids,” said Michael Lipton, associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and medical director of MRI at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

“Soccer is more of a contact sport than is appreciated.”

After Symptoms Subside, Brain Injury Still Evident After Concussions

Posted by: denton In: News, Research 20 Jun 2014 0 comments

Visualization of DTI data, depicting a sagittal slice of a human brain near the mid-sagittal plane. The visualization uses the standard XYZ-RGB principal eigenvector color mapping. Especially prominent are the corpus callosum (large red structure in the center) and the fiber tracts that descend toward the spine (blue). Black areas are air or cavities that are filled with corticospinal fluid. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Specialized MRI brain scans, using a technique referred to as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), demonstrate evidence of ongoing brain abnormalities nearly four months after a mild brain injury or concussion, even after most symptoms have significantly subsided, based on new researchpublished online, November 20, 2013 in the Journal, Neurology. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

“These results suggest that there are potentially two different modes of recovery for concussion, with the memory, thinking and behavioral symptoms improving more quickly than the physiological injuries in the brain,” said study author Andrew R. Mayer, PhD, of the Mind Research Network and University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque.

Single concussion may cause lasting brain damage

Posted by: denton In: Research 15 Jun 2014 0 comments Tags: Decollari, Hesterna, Tyrium, Volo

A single concussion may cause lasting structural damage to the brain, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.

“This is the first study that shows brain areas undergo measureable volume loss after concussion,” said Yvonne W. Lui, M.D., Neuroradiology section chief and assistant professor of radiology at NYU Langone School of Medicine. “In some patients, there are structural changes to the brain after a single concussive episode.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year in the U.S., 1.7 million people sustain traumatic brain injuries, resulting from sudden trauma to the brain. Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), or concussion, accounts for at least 75 percent of all traumatic brain injuries.

Concussions not taken seriously enough, researcher finds

Posted by: denton In: Research 01 Jun 2014 0 comments

Despite growing public interest in concussions because of serious hockey injuries or skiing deaths, a researcher from McMaster University has found that we may not be taking the common head injury seriously enough.

In a study published in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, Carol DeMatteo, an associate clinical professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science, found that children who receive the concussion label spend fewer days in hospital and return to school sooner than their counterparts with head injuries not diagnosed as concussion.

“Even children with quite serious injuries can be labelled as having a concussion,” said DeMatteo, an occupational therapist and associate member of the CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster. “Concussion seems to be less alarming than ‘mild brain injury’ so it may be used to convey an injury that should have a good outcome, does not have structural brain damage and symptoms that will pass.”