Football is an incredibly popular sport with hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide. This sport has attracted many high school, and even middle school adolescents to begin playing. As popular as the sport is, it is known for causing severe injuries to these young players. About 500,000 injuries are reported among high school football players annually, 67,000 of these injuries are concussions. Even with shoulder pads, helmets, and other protective gear, players suffer from concussions. Concussions may seem like small injuries that most high schoolers heal from, however, these injuries can leave a lasting impact on their mental health. 1 in every 5 individuals who have suffered a mild brain injury, such as a concussion, may experience mental health symptoms, including depression, ADHD, anxiety, and even (PTSD). These mental health disorders have an impact on these adolescents' brains and different cognitive functions.
In the article, “Cognitive-motor integration deficits in young adult athletes following concussion,” Dr. Jeffrey A. Brown and other researchers studied the deficits in adolescent athletes’ cognitive-motor integration after suffering a concussion. 18 athletes with a history of concussions and 17 athletes with no history of concussions participated in this study. Both groups of athletes were asked to perform different tasks that tested direct mapping, rotated feedback, and memory delay. It was concluded that the athletes who had suffered concussions in the past had slower reaction times, slower movement times, reduced precision, and difficulty with complex tasks that included multiple layers of dissociation compared to the athletes who had never suffered from concussions.
Concussions impact more than just cognitive-motor integration. In the article, Dynamic Cognitive Inhibition in the Context of Frustration: Increasing Racial Representation of Adolescent Athletes Using Mobile community-engaged EEG Methods, Dr. Caitlin Hudac and her colleagues conducted research that explored the Dr. Caitlin Hudac and other researchers explore a concept called cognitive inhibition and how it is impacted under frustration induction. Cognitive inhibition is how negative feelings and emotions can affect a person’s responses. An EEG was performed on 23 high school football players to test cognitive inhibition to monitor their brain activities. When introduced to frustration, 17 players had affected brain responses, specifically in the N2 component signal, a neuronal marker for cognitive inhibition. The N2 signal's strength was reduced due to the feeling of frustration. Athletes with mental health disorders, like anxiety, were more impacted by the frustration induction. This is because athletes with a history of mental health disorders tend to struggle with the regulation of their emotions. This dysregulation affects the player’s ability to manage negative emotions like frustration.
Both these articles display the severity of concussions. There may be no visible impact on adolescents, but these injuries do impact their brain and cognitive functions. Suffering from a concussion does reduce certain cognitive-motor integration, such as movement times and precision. This injury also has a high chance of developing mental disorders. These mental disorders also impact the athletes due to the reduction of emotional regulation, thus reducing their cognitive inhibition. A future study that could be conducted is tracking athletes who have suffered from concussions and their cognitive functions, emotional health, and physical health over a span of time to determine if the functions improve over time or if other symptoms arise after months or even years.
References:
1. Brown, J.A., Dalecki, M., Hughes, C. et al. (2015). Cognitive-motor integration deficits in young adult athletes following concussion. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil 7, 25. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13102-015-0019-4
2. Lee S, Moon JH, Park KH, et al. (2022). The impact of white matter hyperintensities on cognitive and functional outcomes after stroke. Front Neurol. 13. 918075. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.918075
3. National Institutes of Health. Mental health disorders common following mild head injury. 2021. Accessed December 7, 2024. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mental-health-disorders-common-following-mild-head-injury#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20reveals%20that,up%20care%20for%20these%20patients
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