Tag: soccer

Categories : NeurologyTags :

Soccer Headers may be More Damaging to Brain than Thought

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Kenny Webster on Unsplash

Soccer heading may cause more damage to the brain than previously thought, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Heading is a widely used technique in soccer where the players control the direction of the ball by hitting it with their head. In recent years, research has been done that suggests a link between repeated head impacts and neurodegenerative diseases, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

“The potential effects of repeated head impacts in sport are much more extensive than previously known and affect locations similar to where we’ve seen CTE pathology,” said study senior author Michael L. Lipton, MD, PhD, professor of radiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “This raises concern for delayed adverse effects of head impacts.”

While prior studies have identified injuries to the brain’s white matter in soccer players, Dr Lipton and colleagues used a new approach in diffusion MRI to analyse microstructure close to the surface of the brain.

To identify how repeated head impacts affect the brain, the researchers compared brain MRIs of 352 male and female amateur soccer players, ranging in age from 18 to 53, to brain MRIs of 77 non-collision sport athletes, such as runners.

Soccer players who headed the ball at high levels showed abnormality of the brain’s white matter adjacent to sulci, which are deep grooves in the brain’s surface. Abnormalities in this region of the brain are known to occur in very severe traumatic brain injuries.

The abnormalities were most prominent in the frontal lobe of the brain, an area most susceptible to damage from trauma and frequently impacted during soccer heading. More repetitive head impacts were also associated with poorer verbal learning.

“Our analysis showed that the white matter abnormalities represent a mechanism by which heading leads to worse cognitive performance,” Dr Lipton said.

Most of the participants of the study had never sustained a concussion or been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. This suggests that repeated head impacts that don’t result in serious injury may still adversely affect the brain.

“The study identifies structural brain abnormalities from repeated head impacts among healthy athletes,” Dr Lipton said. “The abnormalities occur in the locations most characteristic of CTE, are associated with worse ability to learn a cognitive task and could affect function in the future.”

The results of this study are also relevant to head injuries from other contact sports. The researchers stress the importance of knowing the risks of repeated head impacts and their potential to harm brain health over time.

“Characterising the potential risks of repetitive head impacts can facilitate safer sport engagement to maximise benefits while minimising potential harms,” Dr Lipton said. “The next phase of the study is ongoing and examines the brain mechanisms underlying the MRI effects and potential protective factors.”

Source: Radiological Society of North America

Categories : NeurologyTags :

Goalies Really are Wired Differently to Other Soccer Players

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

In soccer, goalkeepers have a unique role: they must be ready to make split-second decisions based on incomplete information to stop their opponents from scoring a goal. Now researchers reporting in Current Biology on have some of the first solid scientific evidence that goalkeepers show fundamental differences in the way they perceive the world and process multi-sensory information.

“Unlike other football players, goalkeepers are required to make thousands of very fast decisions based on limited or incomplete sensory information,” says Michael Quinn, the study’s first author at Dublin City University who is also a retired professional goalkeeper and son of former Irish international Niall Quinn. “This led us to predict that goalkeepers would possess an enhanced capacity to combine information from the different senses, and this hypothesis was confirmed by our results.”

“While many football players and fans worldwide will be familiar with the idea that goalkeepers are just ‘different’ from the rest of us, this study may actually be the first time that we have proven scientific evidence to back up this claim,” says David McGovern, the study’s lead investigator also from Dublin City University.

Based on his own history as a professional goalkeeper, Quinn already had a feeling that goalkeepers experience the world in a distinctive way. In his final year working on a psychology degree, he wanted to put this notion to the test.

To do it, the researchers enlisted 60 volunteers, including professional goalkeepers, professional outfield players, and age-matched controls who don’t play soccer. They decided to look for differences among the three groups in what’s known as temporal binding windows – that is, the time window within which signals from the different senses are likely to be perceptually fused or integrated.

In each trial, participants were presented with one or two images (visual stimuli) on a screen. Those images could be presented along with one, two, or no beeps (auditory stimuli). Those stimuli were presented with different amounts of time in between.

In these tests, trials with one flash and two beeps generally led to the mistaken perception of two flashes, providing evidence that the auditory and visual stimuli have been integrated. This mistaken perception declines as the amount of time between stimuli increases, allowing researchers to measure the width of a person’s temporal binding window, with a narrower temporal binding window indicating more efficient multisensory processing.

their tests showed that goalkeepers had marked differences in their multisensory processing ability. More specifically, goalkeepers had a narrower temporal binding window relative to outfielders and non-soccer players, indicating a more precise and speedy estimation of the timing of audiovisual cues.

The test results revealed another difference too. Goalkeepers didn’t show as much interaction between the visual and auditory information. The finding suggests that the goalies had a greater tendency to separate sensory signals. In other words, they integrated the flashes and beeps to a lesser degree.

“We propose that these differences stem from the idiosyncratic nature of the goalkeeping position that puts a premium on the ability of goalkeepers to make quick decisions, often based on partial or incomplete sensory information,” the researchers write.

They speculate that the tendency to segregate sensory information stems from goalies need to make quick decisions based on visual and auditory information coming in at different times. For example, goalkeepers watch how a ball is moving in the air and also make use of the sound of the ball being kicked. But the relationship between those cues in time will depend on where the outfielder making the shot is on the field. After repeated exposure to those scenarios, goalkeepers may start to process sensory cues separately rather than combining them.

The researchers say they hope to explore other questions in future studies, including whether players with other highly specialised positions, such as strikers and centre-backs, may also show perceptual differences. They’re also curious to know which comes first. “Could the narrower temporal binding window observed in goalkeepers stem from the rigorous training regimens that goalkeepers engage in from an early age?” McGovern asks. “Or could it be that these differences in multisensory processing reflect an inherent, natural ability that draws young players to the goalkeeping position? Further research that tracks the developmental trajectory of aspiring goalkeepers will be required to tease between these possibilities.”

Source: Cell Press via MedicalXpress