|
 Among former professional, college and high school football players,
those with earlier exposure to the game were more than twice as
likely to report impairments in regulating their behavior, while
they had triple the risk of depression symptoms, Dr. Robert Stern of
Boston University and his colleagues found.
“The findings suggest that being hit in the head repeatedly during
what might be a critical window of neurodevelopmental vulnerability
may increase risk for later-life emotional, behavioral and executive
dysfunction,” Stern told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.
Repetitive head impacts, even when they do not lead to a
full-fledged concussion, are associated with cognitive, behavioral
and mood problems in ex-football players, Stern’s team writes in
Translational Psychiatry. Repeated blows to the head are also
associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a
degenerative brain condition that can only be diagnosed after death.
Not everyone exposed to repetitive head impacts develops CTE, the
authors stress, so other factors - including age at first exposure
to play - may make a person more or less vulnerable to lasting brain
damage.
The researchers had 214 former football players complete a battery
of tests of behavior, mood and cognition by telephone. Those who
began playing before age 12 - just under half of the group - had
more depressive symptoms and more apathy than those who started
playing later.
Executive functioning, a set of mental skills that help people stay
organized and get things done, was also worse, on average, in the
players who started football earlier. These players also had more
difficulty regulating their behavior.
Youth football players sustain about 250 head impacts per season,
and repeated head impacts have been associated with changes in the
white matter of the brain, Stern noted.
“The brain undergoes dramatic maturation and growth throughout
childhood and adolescence, but there are several brain structures
and the functioning of certain areas of the brain that reach peak
development during the years between ages 10 and 12 in males,” he
added. That includes formation of a protective myelin covering on
brain cell axons, he noted, and peak growth of critical structures
in parts of the brain known as the limbic system. Myelination allows
nerves to transmit impulses effectively, while the limbic system is
important in emotional regulation.
[to top of second column] |
“Right now there’s a lot of discussion about whether youth football
is indeed a safe thing for children to be doing,” Stern said. “Maybe
we should rethink how healthy and safe it is to expose children to
repeated blows to the head through youth football.”
The findings don’t mean it’s safe to start playing football after
age 12, he added. “At least putting off tackle football until a
later age may be beneficial, but not necessarily overall-risk free.
Anything we do to reduce the overall number of repetitive hits to
the head would in my mind be a step forward.”
The study is “important work,” said Dr. Joel Stitzel of Wake Forest
School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but he noted
that the study participants - whose average age was about 51 - were
playing before the risks of head injury in football were well
recognized.
Stitzel and his colleagues, who were not involved in the study, are
currently conducting National Institutes of Health-funded research
on head impact exposures in youth football players.
“There are a lot of changes to youth organizations and youth leagues
around the country that have taken place over the past several
years,” he said, such as eliminating kickoffs and limiting tackle
football to older players. “Those are the things that are going to
make the game safer going forward.”
SOURCE: http://go.nature.com/2hgV1xm Translational Psychiatry,
online September 19, 2017.
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
