Cited by 245Traumatic Brain Injury ResearchSports injuries and preventionAutomotive and Human Injury Biomechanics

Cognitive effects of one season of head impacts in a cohort of collegiate contact sport athletes

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McAllister, T.W., Flashman, L.A., Maerlender, A., Greenwald, R.M., Beckwith, J.G., Tosteson, T.D., Crisco, J.J., Brolinson, P.G. +4 more·2012·Neurology

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.

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  • Clinical and functional impairments in cognition have been correlated with the frequency of impacts to the head in high school and collegiate football players wearing helmet-mounted accelerometers, although not all helmet sensor studies have supported this relationship.

    “Clinical and functional impairments in cognition have also been correlated with the frequency of impacts to the head in high school and collegiate football players wearing helmet-mounted accelerometers [16, 121, 180], although not all helmet sensor studies have supported this relationship [81].”

    From The neuropathology of sport (2014) · cites this paper as [121]

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Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. J Athl Train Dev J 2007;42:249 -254.
  2. Crisco JJ, Fiore R, Beckwith JG, et al. Frequency and loca- tion of head impacts in individual collegiate football play- ers. J Athl Train 2010;45:549 -559.
  3. Crisco JJ, Therrien B, Machan JT, et al. Head impact se- verity measures in collegiate football players. J Appl Bio- mech (in press 2012).
  4. Pellman E, Viano D, Tucker A, Casson I. Concussion in professional football: Location and direction of helmet im- pacts. Neurosurgery 2003;53:1328 -1341.
  5. Crisco J, Chu J, Greenwald R. An algorithm and method for estimating the magnitude and direction of the linear acceleration of the head using multiple single-axis acceler- ometers. J Biomech Eng 2004;126:849 -855.
  6. Delis DC, Kramer JH, Kaplan E, Ober BA. California Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition: Adult Version Manual. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corpora- tion; 2000.

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Authors
McAllister, T. W., Flashman, L. A., Maerlender, A., Greenwald, R. M., Beckwith, J. G., Tosteson, T. D., Crisco, J. J., Brolinson, P. G., Duma, S. M., Duhaime, A.-C., Grove, M. R., & Turco, J. H.
Affiliations
Dartmouth College (US)
Venue
Neurology
Published
2012-05-29
Volume
78
Issue
22
Pages
1777-1784
ISSN
  • 0028-3878 (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-632X
OpenAlex
W2146250230
Cited by
245
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 12
FWCI
16.04
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Neurology (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lincoln (University of Nebraska) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE 04-07)
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Cancer Institute (P30CA023108)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS055020)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD048638)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Orthopedics and Sports Medicine › Sports injuries and prevention
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Automotive and Human Injury Biomechanics
Keywords
repetitive head impacts, cognitive performance, collegiate athletes, contact sports, football, ice hockey, head impact exposure, new learning, impact, California Verbal Learning Test, reaction time, neuropsychological assessment
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Analysis of Variance, Athletic Injuries, Brain Concussion, Cognition, Cognition Disorders, Female, Humans, Learning, Male, Memory, Neuropsychological Tests, Sports, Students, Universities, Cohort Studies, Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic, Young Adult

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