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When soccer players repeatedly deflect the ball with their heads, they suffer concussive-type damage to the frontal portion of their brains with diminished neural organization and diminished verbal learning performance.  Columbia University radiologists draw these conclusions from research they are scheduled to present to their specialty’s annual meeting.

The investigators conducted two studies involving 500 soccer players during which they correlated brain imaging data with detailed questionnaires quantitating the level of soccer heading.  The group of high intensity headers with more than 1500 incidents over 2 years showed significant imaging pathology including elevated frontal white matter diffusivity, a decrease in the orientation dispersion indices, and blunting of the normally sharp gray matter-white matter transition line.  These anatomic changes are associated with diminished learning and problem-solving skills.

In Europe, soccer is called football since the chief means of propelling the ball toward the goal involves kicking, not heading.  If you have children, teens, and young adults playing the game, strongly encourage them to keep the ball off their heads.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231129112526.htm

#soccer #heading #concussion #learning #problemsolving