Concussions May Damage Areas Of The Brain Related To Memory

Concussions May Damage Areas Of The Brain Related To Memory.
Concussions may injury areas of the perceptiveness related to memory in National Football League players. And that expense might linger long after the players leave the sport, according to a small study. "We're hoping that our findings are common to further inform the game," Dr Jennifer Coughlin, an second professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a university hearsay release. "That may mean individuals are able to make more educated decisions about whether they're reachable to brain injury, advise how helmets are structured or inform guidelines for the encounter to better protect players".

The study included nine former NFL players, ages 57 to 74. The bunch of concussions they suffered while playing varied from none to 40. The look also included a control group of nine adults with no history of concussion. Sophisticated PET scans revealed signs of harm in a number of areas of the former football players' brains, including a bailiwick that regulates mood and one linked to verbal memory. MRI scans also showed that the hippocampus, an ground involved in several aspects of memory, was smaller in the former football players' brains than it was in the brains of those in the leadership group.

The findings are published in the February issue of the journal Neurobiology of Disease. Many of the previous football players also scored low on memory tests, particularly those used to assess lexical learning and memory. While it's a small study, the findings suggest that molecular and structural changes become manifest in certain brain regions of athletes who've suffered numerous hits to the head, even years after they stopped playing, the researchers said. However, the findings only to also make to an association between repeated concussions and long-term waste of memory, not a cause-and-effect relationship testmedplus.com. The researchers added that if the findings are confirmed in larger studies, they could assume command to changes in the way players are treated after a concussion, or how touch sports are played.