The researchers concluded that players with more exposure to head impacts displayed more changes to their white matter. The brain’s white matter is composed of millions of nerve fibers that act like communication cables, connecting various regions of the brain.
“We’re seeing changes in the brain related to exposure, but if you talk to these players, if you look at their clinical imaging, there’s nothing you can identify that’s abnormal about them,” Whitlow said. “So the question becomes, what do these changes mean? And that we don’t have an answer to, yet.”
Dr. Christopher Giza is director of the Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program and a professor of pediatric neurology and neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He said the study results are consistent with previous studies, and the tools used by the researchers add valuable new data to the field of study.
“A big strength of this study is they [the researchers] have this very quantitative measure that can essentially count the magnitude, the size and the number of impacts,” Giza said. “That’s certainly more objective than relying on an athlete or coach to tell you that somebody has symptoms.
“There is some evidence that cumulative impacts, regardless of whether you had a concussion or not, might be a problem,” he continued. “Being able to measure those impacts more objectively can be helpful.”
However, Giza noted that this study contained too few players to provide conclusive data. Also, a couple of players seemed to suffer more hits and underwent more brain changes than the rest, which might have skewed the results, he said.
“I wouldn’t want to make a conclusion about every kid playing football on the basis of 25 kids in this study, particularly if the results are driven by one or two individuals in this study,” Giza said.
Whitlow said the new results come from year two of a five-year study, and the researchers will continue to track some of these players. The researchers also conducted cognitive tests on the players, and are analyzing that data for future publication.
“There are some additional questions we need to ask,” he said. “What becomes of these changes? Do they linger? Do they go away? Do they have any long-term consequences?”
The new study was published Oct. 24 in the journal Radiology.