Football heading does most damage to brain area critical for cognition, study finds

New brain imaging shows football heading damages tissue behind the forehead, impairing learning and memory in players.

The scans revealed that repeated heading disrupts the boundary between grey matter, which processes information, and white matter, which carries signals – particularly in players who head the ball most often.

Researchers scanned 352 adult amateur footballers reporting different heading levels over the past year, alongside 77 athletes from non-contact sports.

The technique, developed at Columbia University, focuses on the point where white and grey matter meet in the cerebral cortex – the brain’s outer surface, which is hard to examine with standard imaging.

Players reporting more than 1,000 headers a year showed blurred transitions in the orbitofrontal region, the area behind the forehead that supports memory and learning.

These players also scored a few points lower on memory and learning tests than those who rarely headed the ball.

Study leader Michael Lipton is professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Lipton said: “What’s important about our study is that it shows, really for the first time, that exposure to repeated head impacts causes specific changes in the brain that, in turn, impair cognitive function.”

The team used diffusion MRI, which measures the microstructure of brain tissue, to see how repeated impacts affect the junction between grey and white matter.

Because these tissues have different densities and move differently during impact, the border is especially vulnerable.

Joan Song, a graduate student involved in developing the method, explained: “In healthy individuals, there’s a sharp transition between these tissues.

“Here we studied if an attenuation of this transition may occur with minor impacts caused by heading.”

Greater disruption in this region was directly linked to poorer test scores, evidence Lipton said was “very strong” in showing that these structural changes drive cognitive problems.

A second study from his lab using another imaging technique found related damage in the same brain region.

Lipton said: “The fact that both techniques, looking at two different features, find the same association strengthens our conclusion that these changes are mediating heading’s cognitive effects.”

Researchers noted that the location of damage closely matches patterns seen in chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease found in athletes with repeated head trauma.

However, they cautioned that no direct link has yet been proven.

The team is now exploring whether these brain changes may predict later development of CTE, and whether cardiovascular exercise could help protect against damage from repeated heading.