Youth football playing may contribute to long-term cognitive, behavioral issues: BU study

September 21, 2017 | by

An extension of Boston University’s pioneering CTE brain research [TTA 26 July] is this newly published study in Translational Psychiatry on cognitive and behavioral changes in former football players. This sampled 214 living former American football players who played high school, college or professional football and did not participate in any other organized contact sports. These players were recruited through BU’s LEGEND longitudinal research registry of living active and former contact and non-contact sports athletes to examine the short/long-term outcomes of repetitive head impacts (RHI). Participants in the program performed over time a battery of cognitive and functional tests. It also screened out those who self-reported concussion within one year of the study inception.

The findings point a very long finger at early tackle football playing in youth football programs, typically from age 5 to 14 when the brain is undergoing massive development. Below quotes are direct from the study:

  • Those who began playing football before age 12 had >2 × increased odds for clinically meaningful impairments in reported behavioral regulation, apathy and executive function, and >3 × increased odds for clinically elevated depression scores, compared with those who began playing at 12 or older.
  • Effects were independent of age, education and duration of football play.
  • Younger AFE (age of first exposure-Ed.) to football, in general, corresponded with worse behavioral regulation, depression, apathy and executive function, as well as increased odds for clinical depression and apathy.

To our knowledge, this study is the first to show a relationship between younger AFE to football and reported clinical dysfunction in a cohort that included both former amateur and professional football players. There was no difference in the effect of AFE by highest level of play. These findings validate and expand upon our previous work in a small, entirely distinct sample of former NFL players, and extend the influence of AFE to football on clinical function to former football players who only played through high school or college. Overall, this study provides further evidence that playing youth American football may have long-term clinical implications, including behavioral and mood impairments.

The study has an extensive discussion of brain development in the young and how ages 9-12 are critical. Two studies using helmet accelerometry on current youth American football players estimate 240 to 252 median head impacts per season.

There are a considerable number of caveats throughout the study, including the kind of protection available in past youth football for the average age respondent (51) and the self-reporting methodology. It is not a risk study for CTE, nor is it intended to advocate the reduction or elimination of youth football. It does advocate for more longitudinal studies. This Editor has attended at least two talks by the CTE Center’s Robert Stern, MD, and he has been never been content with limiting his study to either football or to purely concussive damage. 

Why is this research important to healthcare and to technology? (I’ll expand upon a previous closing.)

  • First, because repetitive brain trauma–concussive and sub-concussive–now has an even better-documented relationship to significant medical and behavioral conditions. This study is now another part of fundamental research to deepen our knowledge about the effects and long term brain outcomes of head trauma, whether from football, other contact sports, combat service (e.g. IED explosions), car accidents, and even repetitive actions by a person who is developmentally disabled.
  • Second, avoiding or minimizing head trauma in sports and warfare, plus correctly diagnosing and treating concussion and sub-concussion, are huge areas for technology about which this Editor has advocated for several years.
  • The message here is not that football is bad, but in the present state and starting age is played dangerously for long term brain development and the subsequent mental health of players. This does not exclude other high contact sports such as flag football, hockey and rugby–the orthopedist’s gift–and heading the ball in soccer. We need to know more, minimize it now, and both playing the game, with the aid of health tech, should be part of this.

Translational Psychiatry (Nature.com), STATNews has further analysis

Related reading: Our extensive backfile of CTE research coverage is here, including this Editor’s reports on Dr. Stern’s presentations at NYC MedTech and GCRI. 

‘Brain Games’ on preventing, diagnosing sub-concussive brain trauma

May 16, 2014 | by

Tuesday 13 May, presented at NYC MedTech-the NYC Medical Technology Forum, at Troutman Sanders LLP, Chrysler Building, New York City

In a packed (agenda and attendees) two hour evening meeting, three presenters detailed the latest research on the clinical signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), along with new technologies for detecting it as it happens and diagnosing it plus monitoring recovery: Robert Stern, PhD, professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the Boston University School of Medicine and a leading clinical researcher on CTE (as our long-time readers know) ; Isaiah Kacyvenski, head of the sports segment of electronics designer MC10 which developed the Checklight head impact indicator for Reebok; and Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD, co-founder of Oculogica which presented at ELabNYC a few weeks ago.

Dr. Stern’s presentation reviewed his clinical work with primarily NFL players in how CTE manifests in both behavior patterns and the brain. His focus remains on sub-concussive trauma, the ‘bottom of the iceberg’ in his analogy, and its cumulative, long-term effects.  Repetitive brain trauma–neuronal shearing which is produced by linear, lateral and rotational forces to the head–produce a cascade of brain changes leading to destruction of brain tissues that show as dark patches on post-mortem samples and scans. These differ from Alzheimer’s disease in the abundance of tau protein distributed fairly early in life around the brain’s blood vessels and in the depths of the cortical sulci, where Alzheimer’s signature beta amyloid does not locate. Dr. Stern’s research also incorporates the behavioral changes that precede diagnosis: the emotional ‘short fuse’, the difficulty in memory, accidents, suicide, drastic changes in behavior and impulse control. There are many examples of degeneration and early death among players [TTA 6 Dec 12 which also refers to Dr. Stern’s research published in Brain; also see TTA 5 June 2013 on his German Center presentation which has additional background on his and his team’s research.]

In addition to the work he has done relating to (American) football (he is on the NFL Players Association brain injury committee and his research was instrumental in the PA’s lawsuit against the NFL), he studies other contact sports such as hockey (brain injury clusters (more…)

Concussion diagnostics a hot area

May 2, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Cerora-Simon.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Diagnosing concussive and sub-concussive head blows both in sports and on the battlefield have been challenging, and your Editors have chronicled several approaches. One of the 2014 graduates of NYCEDC’s ELabNYC was Oculogica; their EyeBox CNS records three key eye movements in a 4 1/2 minute test to determine whether they fit a normal box pattern, with subsequent exams determining rate of brain recovery [TTA 17 Apr]. (We’ll be seeing more of Oculogica at NYC MedTech 13 May, along with MC10 which helped to develop the Checklight impact indicating skullcap with Reebok, seen at last November’s CES preview [TTA 15 Nov 13] and winning CES’ 2014 Design & Engineering award.) Now out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is Cerora’s MindReader, developed out of Lehigh University, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of NE Pennsylvania and in the first StartUp Health Academy/GE Entrepreneurship class. It is a wireless dry contact EEG reader which combined with other biosensor data and clinical observation aids speedy diagnosis. The reader is worn either on Google Glass or a headset (pictured above left on CEO Adam J. Simon, PhD). It’s in early days and still in testing; the baselines alone will need data from at minimum tens of thousands of subjects beyond the current testing on Lehigh U. athletes. Dr. Simon is also projecting use for sub-concussion injury, Alzheimer’s, PTSD and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Lehigh Valley Live, release on presentation at the American Academy of Neurology Annual meeting 30 April, WFMZ Ch. 69 News (video)