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Repeated mild traumatic brain injuries is not associated with volumetric differences in former high school football players

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Abstract

We investigated potential brain volumetric differences in a sample of former high school football players many years after these injuries. Forty community-dwelling males ages 40–65 who played high school football, but not college or professional sports, were recruited. The experimental group (n = 20) endorsed experiencing two or more mTBIs on an empirically validated mTBI assessment tool (median = 3, range = 2–15). The control group (n = 20) denied ever experiencing an mTBI. Participants completed a self-report index of current mTBI symptomatology and underwent high-resolution T1-weighted MRI scanning, which were analyzed using the Freesurfer software package. A priori regions of interest (ROIs) included total intracranial volume (ICV), total gray matter, total white matter, bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral hippocampi, and lateral ventricles. ROIs were corrected for head size using a normalization method that took ICV into account. Despite an adequate sample size and being matched on age, education, estimated premorbid IQ, current concussive symptomatology, there were no statistically significant volumetric group differences across all of the ROIs. These data suggest that multiple mTBIs from high school football may not be associated with measurable brain atrophy later in life. Accounting for the severity of injury and chronicity of sport exposure may be especially important when measuring long-term neuroanatomical differences.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by the charitable contributions of the John & Mary Franklin Foundation and the BioImaging Research Center at the University of Georgia. There are no other funding agencies or conflicts of interest to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Douglas P. Terry

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Douglas P. Terry

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 110 Hooper St, Psychology Building, Room 163, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    L. Stephen Miller

  4. BioImaging Research Center, Biomedical & Health Science Institute, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    L. Stephen Miller

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This study was funded by partial support to D.P. Terry by the John and Mary Franklin Foundation and the University of Georgia BioImaging Research Center.

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D.P. Terry and L.S. Miller declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Georgia Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Terry, D.P., Miller, L.S. Repeated mild traumatic brain injuries is not associated with volumetric differences in former high school football players. Brain Imaging and Behavior 12, 631–639 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-017-9719-6

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