Sports-related concussions (SRC) might not pose long-lasting cognitive risks for amateur athletes, according to new findings from a study. Interestingly, participants who have experienced an SRC showed improved cognitive performance in certain areas compared to those who had never suffered a concussion, suggesting possible protective benefits of engaging in sports.
Recent research, spearheaded by a UNSW medical expert, indicates that sports-related concussions (SRC) may lack long-term cognitive risks for non-professional athletes. Data reveals that study participants who faced an SRC outperformed their peers who had never had a concussion in various cognitive aspects, hinting at the protective potential of sports involvement.
The research, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (JNNP), highlights that individuals who reported ever experiencing an SRC exhibited slightly better cognitive capabilities than those with no history of concussions.
This study, a joint effort among researchers from UNSW Sydney, the University of Oxford, the University of Exeter, and Harvard University, examined data from over 15,000 participants aged 50 to 90 from the UK’s PROTECT study, which focuses on understanding brain aging and cognitive decline.
Dr. Matt Lennon MD, PhD, from the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW Medicine & Health and lead author of the study, stated, “Our results indicate that even when experiencing a concussion, participating in sports may contribute positively to cognitive health in the long term.”
He added, “While it’s possible that individuals who engage in sports have access to superior education and resources, we adjusted for these variables in our analysis, ruling them out as a factor in our findings. We propose that engaging in sports might lead to physical, social, and long-term behavioral improvements that promote healthier aging.”
Largest Study on Long-Term Impact of Sports Concussions
This investigation is the most extensive yet focused on the long-term cognitive effects of SRC. Researchers gathered lifetime concussion histories from 15,214 participants using the Brain Injury Screening Questionnaire. Among these, 6,227 (39.5%) acknowledged having had at least one concussion, while 510 (3.2%) reported at least one moderate to severe concussion. Participants generally noted experiencing their most recent head injury, on average, about 29 years before the study, with their first head injury occurring 39 years earlier.
Researchers compared cognitive abilities among participants with different concussion histories, including 0, 1, 2, and 3 or more SRCs, as well as non-sports-related concussions (nSRCs) caused by falls, car accidents, assaults, and other incidents. Those with SRCs displayed a 4.5 percentile ranking improvement in working memory and a 7.9% enhancement in reasoning abilities compared to individuals without concussions.
Additionally, those with one SRC showed superior verbal reasoning and attention compared to those without any SRCs.
On the flip side, participants with 3 or more nSRCs related to accidents and assaults exhibited slower processing speed and attention and a decline in verbal reasoning as they aged.
Professor Vanessa Raymont from the University of Oxford and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, the study’s senior author, noted, “These findings suggest that the long-term benefits of sports might surpass any negative consequences of concussions, which could significantly impact policy decisions regarding participation in contact sports. It’s also possible that non-sports-related concussions cause more severe brain damage than those associated with sports.”
The researchers acknowledged some limitations within the study.
Professor Raymont stated, “The retrospective nature of our study, relying on elderly participants to recall events occurring over three decades ago, could have influenced the reporting of head injuries, even though we utilized a validated head injury screening method.”
Study Significance
This study focused on individuals in mid-to-late life who had experienced SRCs many years earlier, contrasting with most previous research which tends to center on younger athletes shortly after their injuries when cognitive effects are most prominent.
“While our results do not guarantee the safety of any particular sport, they suggest that overall, engaging in sports might have more positive effects on long-term cognitive health than the harm it may cause, even among those who experienced concussions,” Dr. Lennon explained.
He cautioned, “This conclusion should not be overstated — the benefits were minor, and individuals with two or more sports-related concussions saw no additional advantages. Moreover, these findings do not pertain to concussions in professional athletes, who often endure more frequent, severe, and debilitating head injuries.”
Anne Corbett, a professor at Exeter University and the lead investigator for the PROTECT study, remarked, “We are observing a distinctly different brain health outcome pattern for individuals who suffer concussions during sports versus those from other circumstances. Concussions sustained during sports appear to have a negligible effect on brain health, while other types of concussions do, particularly for those with multiple injuries. Individuals involved in sports demonstrate better brain health, regardless of whether they’ve experienced a concussion.”
