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Abstract
Objective: To determine whether exposure to repetitive head impacts over a single season negatively affects cognitive performance in collegiate contact sport athletes.
Methods: This is a prospective cohort study at 3 Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association athletic programs. Participants were 214 Division I college varsity football and ice hockey players who wore instrumented helmets that recorded the acceleration-time history of the head following impact, and 45 noncontact sport athletes. All athletes were assessed prior to and shortly after the season with a cognitive screening battery (ImPACT) and a subgroup of athletes also were assessed with 7 measures from a neuropsychological test battery.
Results: Few cognitive differences were found between the athlete groups at the preseason or postseason assessments. However, a higher percentage of the contact sport athletes performed more poorly than predicted postseason on a measure of new learning (California Verbal Learning Test) compared to the noncontact athletes (24% vs 3.6%; p < 0.006). On 2 postseason cognitive measures (ImPACT Reaction Time and Trails 4/B), poorer performance was significantly associated with higher scores on several head impact exposure metrics.
Conclusion: Repetitive head impacts over the course of a single season may negatively impact learning in some collegiate athletes. Further work is needed to assess whether such effects are short term or persistent.
GLOSSARY
- ANCOVA=
- analysis of covariance;
- ANOVA=
- analysis of variance;
- BVMT-R=
- Brief Visual Memory Test–Revised;
- CG=
- center of gravity;
- CVLT=
- California Verbal Learning Test;
- D-KEFS=
- Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System;
- HIE=
- head impact exposure;
- HITsp=
- measure of head impact severity;
- ImPACT=
- Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Test;
- MTBI=
- mild traumatic brain injury;
- NCAA=
- National Collegiate Athletic Association;
- PASAT=
- Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task;
- WRAT IV=
- Wide Range Achievement Test 4
Footnotes
Study funding: NIH R01HD048638 and RO1NS055020 and the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE 04-07).
Editorial, page 1712
- Received July 14, 2011.
- Accepted January 25, 2012.
- Copyright © 2012 by AAN Enterprises, Inc.
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