Heading a football might help you score that winning goal, but at risk to your brain. New research shows that even routine heading practice causes damage to players, which are not as severe but not unlike damages caused by concussions.
Researchers from the University of Stirling tested a group of 19 footballers by asking hem to head a football 20 times. The ball was fired from a machine that simulated that pace, power and trajectory of a corner kick. The scientists had tested the players’ for brain inhibition and for cognitive functions like memory before the practice session and again immediately after. They also performed follow-up tests 24 hours, 48 hours and two weeks later.
Specifically, the research team looked for the brain signaling chemical GABA, which acts as an inhibitor – and a powerful one – in the brain’s motor system. They found increased levels of GABA immediately after the heading session and also a drop of between 41% and 67% memory function. These changes, the team noted, were transient and reversed within 24 hours. However, this result was based on only one heading session of 20 headers. More research is needed, the scientists say, to figure out the accumulative effect of such biochemical disruptions in the brain from regular practice drills and whether there might be long-term consequences for brain function.
This is not the first time researchers have looked in to the effects of heading in football on the brain. In 2011,researchers at Yeshiva University used imaging techniques to study amateur football, or soccer as it is called in the United States, players. They found that frequent headers a similar impact on the brain to that seen in patients with concussion, also known as mild traumatic brain injury.
The possibility of short- or long-term brain damage from heading is especially relevant for children playing football. The human brain is still developing in minors and damage to the frontal lobe – the part most affected by heading – could impair emotional control and memory. Moreover, a minor boy or girl’s neck is not as strong as an adult player’s as less effective in absorbing the impact of the ball to the head. This can result in the more trauma being transferred to the head, skull and brain. Some doctors and coaches in the US have started a campaign to ban heading in youth soccer leagues. This story aired by PBS NewsHour in 2015 tells us exactly why.
