New Research: Routine Head Hits in School Sports May Cause Brain Injury

Finally, people are starting to look at head injuries in new (and more accurate) ways. There’s new research which examines the effects of sub-concussive hits on the brains of athletes, and the results are telling.

Read the whole article here >>

A couple things really encourage me from this:

• They are measuring the differences over time, from beginning of season to the end of the season, not measuring concussed athletes against non-concussed individuals. This is important, because there can be many subtle differences within a person that may or may not register as a sign of injury.
• They are measuring not the appearance of brains, but the behavior — the function. They don’t just look at how things appear, but if they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. They check out the function of axons, based on the movement of water within the brain.
• They are using objective brain function measures, rather than people’s performance (which can be “fudged” to produce results that work in their favor).

This all seems a lot more common-sense than the other sorts of testing that’s out there. And the testing is something that’s not subject to individual interpretation. While I respect the opinions of trainers and neuropsychologists and physicians, still, we are all human, and we are unconsciously subject to certain forces that we don’t even know about.

So, having a way to measure brain function before, during, and after sports seasons could be just the thing we need, to more accurately gauge the effect that collision sports have on athletes.

My next question is: Once we know about this, what do we do with the information?

And further: Will we use the information to stop us from moving forward, or will we use it to develop pro-active methods of progressing?