Concussions linked to shrinking brains in former NFL players

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A new study from Texas-based researchers has found that NFL players who suffered from concussions, in which they lost consciousness, tended to have smaller brain structures later in life compared to men from similar backgrounds.
The study team said their report, published in JAMA Neurology, was the first to look at the relationship among hippocampal volume, memory, and concussion severity.
“This is a preliminary study, and there is much more to be learned in the area of concussion and cognitive aging,” study author Munro Cullum, professor of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics at University of Texas Southwestern. “While we found that aging individuals with a history of concussion and loss of consciousness showed smaller hippocampal volumes and lower memory test scores, the good news is that we did not detect a similar relationship among subjects with a history of concussion that did not involve loss of consciousness, which represents the vast majority of concussions.”
Studying the ballers
Study participants were former NFLers ranging from 36 to 79 years old, with an average age of 58. Some of the former players were also considered to have Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a condition that impacts memory performance and may lead to dementia.
The Texas researchers also enlisted 21 healthy men of with comparable age, educational, and intelligence who never experienced a concussion or played professional football.
The study team said their results do not describe why the hippocampus was smaller in the athletes who suffered far more severe concussions. Some shrinking is a part of the standard aging process, but the decline is accentuated in those with MCI and was even more significant in those MCI participants with a background of concussion combined with loss of consciousness.
The study team concluded there must be a snowballing effect of concussion history and MCI on size and performance of the hippocampus.
Concussion biomarker
In January, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania published a study that could make it easier for doctors to quantify the amount of damage suffered during the massive head traumas that football players endure on a regular basis.
The team in that study found elevated levels of a protein fragment called SNTF could be use as a biomarker for long-term physical and mental symptoms related to a concussion.
“We extended this biomarker research to the domain of professional sports to test its merit as an objective and rapid way to determine a players’ severity of brain injury,” says lead author, Robert Siman, a research professor of neurosurgery at Penn. “This blood test may aid neurobiologically-informed decisions on suitability for return to play following a sports-related concussion.”
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