Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Heading in soccer and brain damage

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/a-new-worry-for-soccer-parents-heading-the-ball/
A New Worry for Soccer Parents: Heading the Ball
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
December 7, 2011, 12:01 AM

What happens inside the skull of a soccer player who repeatedly heads a soccer ball? That question motivated a provocative new study of the brains of experienced players that has prompted discussion and debate in the soccer community, and some anxiety among those of us with soccer-playing offspring.

For the study, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York recruited 34 adults, men and women. All of the volunteers had played soccer since childhood and now competed year-round in adult soccer leagues. Each filled out a detailed questionnaire developed especially for this study to determine how many times they had headed a soccer ball in the previous year, as well as whether they had experienced any known concussions in the past.

Then the players completed computerized tests of their memory and other cognitive skills and had their brains scanned, using a sophisticated new M.R.I. technique known as diffusion tensor imaging, which can find structural changes in the brain that would not be visible during most scans.

The researchers found, according to data they presented at a Radiological Society of North America meeting last month, that the players who had headed the ball more than about 1,100 times in the previous 12 months showed significant loss of white matter in parts of their brains involved with memory, attention and the processing of visual information, compared with players who had headed the ball fewer times. (White matter is the brain�s communication wiring, the axons and other structures that relay messages between neurons.)

This pattern of white matter loss is �similar to those seen in traumatic brain injury,� like after a serious concussion, the researchers reported, even though only one of these players reported having ever experienced a concussion.

The players who had headed the ball about 1,100 times or more in the past year were also substantially worse at recalling lists of words read to them, forgetting or fumbling the words far more often than players who had headed the ball less often.

...

So what�s a soccer parent to do?

�What our research shows is that there appears to be a threshold� � about 1,100 or so balls headed in a single year, a substantial number � �beyond which heading may be problematic,� Dr. Lipton says. �Below that threshold, it appears that heading is safe. So our research is actually optimistic, I think.�

Many questions, however, remain � especially about the impact of heading in young players, which has not to date been studied. �On the one hand, kids� brains are developing fast, so they might experience more problems� than adults, Dr. Lipton says. �On the other hand, their brains are renowned for their plasticity, so maybe they�ll recover better. We just don�t know.�

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The idea that there is a threshold of 1100 below which heading is safe is implausible to me. If heading is unsafe, more heading has a larger chance of causing injury, and there is nothing magical about the number 1100. I doubt that IQ can be raised, but people should try to avoid doing things that lower it. There has been much attention recently about brain damage caused by concussions in (American) football, and the NYT just had an article about brain damage in hockey players and boxers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-brain-going-bad.html
Derek Boogaard: A Brain &#145;Going Bad&#146;
By JOHN BRANCH
December 5, 2011 .

I'll have my kids play sports that do not involve blows to head.

Sounds like there need to be soccer helmets.

My son's been playing since he was 4 (almost 8 now) and only just this past fall season did the coach show them what a header was and had them try it a couple of times. I never once saw any of them actually manage to head the ball during a game, and each kid only managed it in practice probably 2-3 times. Something to watch though!

Along the lines of "Is it okay below the cutoff level?"...

I've been reading about lead poisoning and the amount of blood lead that causes brain damage. I learned something very interesting. In 2003, a group of researchers tested the IQs of children with high and low levels of blood lead. High was defined as any measurement that was above the CDC's cutoff for elevated blood lead (10 ug per dL). As expected, the researchers found that IQ dropped as blood lead increased: each increase of 10 ug/dL was associated with a loss of 4.6 IQ points. This result was consistent with results of other studies.

They also decided to check cognitive function in children with low blood lead. So they measured IQ in kids whose blood lead had been in the 1-10 ug/dL category all their lives.

What was really surprising was that IQ dropped 7.6 points in this group --- in other words, more damage happened in the category below the CDC's cutoff for elevated blood lead. This group did a larger study that was published in 2007 and got similar results. There are summaries of the two studies here and here. PM me if you want the papers.

So, do I know if 1,016 annual head blows from a soccer ball are safe and 1,154 would be dangerous? No. But the lead study makes me wonder. And given what we know about head injuries, it's reasonable to assume that pounding your head frequently (or semi-frequently) with a soccer ball moving at high speed probably isn't super-good for your brain.

Yet another reason to get unusually gifted kids out of heterogeneously grouped classrooms.

((Humor alert - but yes - DS did used to bang his head against the desk in 2nd grade.))
Grinity

We have had the same discussion in our household. My MIL is dead set against football due to injuries her brothers sustained.

Some of the worst collisions I've had were on a soccer field with another player. To where I woke up on the field.

When I played football, I did two hits on other players that saw them carried off the field.

As for the OP, the threshold of 1100 vs 1300 may be hiding extreme events that would occur at a higher rate. By extreme I mean hitting another player's head due to agressively going after the ball. I know that I do not go up to contest heading the ball anymore.