Football Brain Injuries Require More Study

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 8, 2014

The claim that playing football can result in lifelong damage to the brain may be premature.

Reports have routinely linked aggression, violence, depression, and suicide with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative brain disease linked to playing football.

But just how CTE and behavioral changes are related is an extremely complex and, as yet, poorly understood issue, write University at Buffalo (UB) researchers in a new research paper.

The paper traces the reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms now associated with CTE back to a 1928 publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled Punch Drunk.

The new paper is published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

That publication chronicled behavioral problems in individuals, presenting as cuckoo, goofy, or slug nutty, following one or more blows to the head. In the historic research, investigators discussed the similarity of these symptoms to other brain disorders that involved encephalitis, inflammation of the brain.

Since then, the UB researchers write, discussion of these symptoms has evolved as new technologies have helped identify specific brain changes that occur after blows to the head result in forces being transferred to the brain.

The UB researchers conclude that long-term or longitudinal research of the effects of CTE has not been performed.

Further the absence of research-accepted diagnostic criteria for identifying individuals who are considered at risk for CTE are a hindrance to establishing and understanding the causal relationship between CTE and behavioral health symptoms.

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Football Brain Injuries Require More Study