Relative Head Impact Exposure and Brain White Matter Alterations After a Single Season of Competitive Football: A Pilot Comparison of Youth Versus High School Football

Objective: Youth athletes are believed to be more susceptible to white matter (WM) degradation resulting from head impact exposure relative to high school (HS) athletes; this hypothesis has not been objectively tested. The purpose of this study was to determine preseason to postseason changes in WM integrity from repetitive head impacts for youth football (YFB) players compared with HS football players during a competitive football season. Design: Prospective cohort. Setting: One season of YFB (grades 7 and 8) and varsity HS football (grades 10-12). Patients or Other Participants: Twelve YFB (13.08 ± 0.64 years) and 21 HS (17.5 ± 0.78 years) athletes. Interventions: Participants completed 2 magnetic resonance imaging sessions: preseason and postseason. Head impact exposure was recorded during practice and games using a helmet-mounted accelerometer. Main Outcome Measures: Tract-based spatial statistics were used to evaluate group differences in preseason to postseason changes in diffusion tensor imaging, including fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD). Results: The HS group exhibited significant preseason to postseason reductions in MD, AD, and RD (P
Source: Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: Original Research Source Type: research