Some 43 percent of retired American football players studied
show signs of traumatic brain injury, raising new concerns about the long-term
effects of hitting and tackling, researchers said Monday, according to AFP.
The study involved 40 retired National Football League (NFL) players, who
underwent thinking and
memory tests as well as brain scans.
Said study author Francis Conidi of the Florida State
University College of Medicine: "This
is one of the largest studies to date in living retired NFL players and one of
the first to demonstrate significant objective evidence for traumatic brain injury
in these former players. The rate of traumatic brain injury was significantly
higher in the players than that found in the general population."
The players ranged in age from 27 to 56 and played an
average of seven years in the league. Most had been out of the NFL for fewer
than five years. They reported an average of eight concussions. Around a third
of the players said they had sustained several hits that were not strong enough
to be diagnosed as concussions.
The findings, based on sensitive MRI scans called diffusion
tensor imaging, were released ahead of a presentation at the American Academy
of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The advanced MRI scans
measured the movement of water molecules in the brain's white matter -- which
controls how the brain functions -- to determine the amount of damage.
"Seventeen players, or 43 percent, had levels of movement 2.5 standard
deviations below those of healthy people of the same age, which is considered
evidence of traumatic brain injury with a less than one percent error rate,"
the study said.
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