Amid mounting concerns over the health of pro football player , a new study has exhibit that as many as 40 percent of turn in NFL superstars could be suffering fromtraumatic brain injury(TBI ) . congeal to be announced at the upcoming yearly get together of the American Academy of Neurology in Vancouver , the study will come as another blow to lovers of the game , which has recently seen something of an exodus of top instrumentalist fearing for their long - term wellness .
While top NFL officials have show out that risk is ever - present in living , and that the prognosis of accidental injury is a worthwhile cost for the kick of the contest , increasing cognisance of the dangers of TBI is make many to reckon twice about donning a helmet and stepping onto the gridiron .
TBI is an umbrella term covering a spectrum of cognitive disorder resulting fromblows to the head . Many of these are difficult to observe , partly because the marks they pass on on the brain do n’t show up in regular operative magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) scan . However , in a recentstudyinvolving war veterans who had received blow to the head while on obligation , research worker bump that house of retentive - term brain impairment could be detected using a technique call diffusion tensor imaging ( DTI ) .
DTI assess the campaign of urine molecules through a type of brain tissue called blank matter , allowing scientists to nail any country where the flow is disrupted due to structural damage . Researchers , therefore , decided to use this technique to study the brains of 40 retired NFL players , who had play an average of seven seasons in the summercater ’s elect league , suffer an average of around eight concussions each during their careers .
Even helmets ca n’t always protect histrion from psyche injuries . dean bertoncelj / Shutterstock
While 12 of these former athlete showed evidence of TBI on traditional MRI scans , 17 were found to be suffering from the condition once DTI was used . This represents a staggering 43 percent of the overall cohort .
Even more alarming is the fact that some of the participants who returned healthy scan actually showed evidence of cognitive impairment when behave thinking and memory tests . Overall , 50 percent of X - pros were find to have problems with executive function – which refers to general job - solve acquisition – while 45 percent had acquisition and memory deficits .
Putting these results into position , study source Francis Conidi explain in astatementthat “ the pace of traumatic brain injury was significantly higher in the players than that found in the general population . ”
Despite the fact that NFL players wear state of matter - of - the - art helmets , scientists are beginning to realise that these are only in force at protecting the skull , but can not forbid player ’ mental capacity from “ sloshing ” around inside their headway when they take a big hit . In the face of produce evidence regarding the dangers of these type of shock , NFL commissioner Rob Goodall was recently leave behind with no choice but topublically acceptthe connection between football game andchronic traumatic encephalopathy(CTE ) , a cognitive disorder that develops from TBI .
In light of this , a number of high - visibility players have recently turn their back on the sport despite plain having their best playacting years still ahead of them . Chris Borlandof the San Francisco 49ers , for example , retired last year at the years of 24 , and has since been follow by the likes of 23 - class - old Buffalo Bills linebackerA.J. Tarpleyand 30 - year - previous Detroit Lions superstar wide-eyed receiverCalvin Johnson .
