Grant: Project Grant

There is growing concern about the risks involved with playing contact sports, as there is evidence that repeated head impacts may lead to long-term problems with brain health, including difficulties with thinking and mood and potentially an increased risk of conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. However, we do not yet fully understand how short-term brain changes associated with repeated head impacts translate into more severe long-term changes in brain health. This limits our ability to accurately evaluate the risks of playing in contact sports. In this study, we propose to fill this knowledge gap by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of university-level athletes throughout the entire course of their varsity career, which is typically 3 years, and also to monitor other aspects of their health, including assessments of symptoms, balance and thinking ability. This will allow us to map long-term brain changes of athletes in contact and non-contact sports, to better understand the cumulative effects of contact sports on brain health. We will also examine differences in outcome between male and female athletes. This research will provide novel information about how the brain responds to repetitive impacts during contact sport participation. It may be used to develop safer guidelines for sport participation, and in the future, will lay the groundwork to develop better measures for monitoring brain health among athletes.