Nathan Garlick Psych 1100 Lifespan 4/23/14 Lifespan of the Brain and the effects of Concussions Presently, our

world has put on the stage what we want to see. Whether its big movie productions with high flying acts, car crashes, pretty women, blowing things up, and walking away from explosions, we in America love to see this. Add football into that mix, and you have a multibillion dollar industry built on grit, hard hitting, explosive tackles, determination, and a little luck for those hoping to someday hoist the Lombardi trophy at the end of the season in the Super Bowl. Football started out in Europe and made its way towards western expansion in early America, but just as a pickup game. Walter Camp, also known as the father of American Football, created the sport in 1880, featuring college teams from Princeton and Rutgers, with a point system, an oval looking ball, and goal posts. It was highly regarded as a violent sport, with no protection, much like the game of rugby. From 1894 though, the game became too violent that many banned the sport from being played. They later made changes in 1897 with the forward pass, punting, and limiting the times it takes to get a first down to make it less violent. As the game was brought back, it evolved over time to current standards of wearing a thermoplastic helmet with bars, padding to cover shoulders and thighs, and other accessories worn by players to enhance their gameplay. But would these new standards in football now days are able to protect players? One thing we know, and

is uprising in all athletics, especially football, is more signs of players experiencing concussions. Over 100,000 concussions/head related injuries occur every year in the sport of football, while 60% of these are from head to head collisions. These collisions usually last about 0.015 seconds on impact, with hits ranging from 100-190 Gs of force. The average speed of both heads colliding is about 20 mph, and the deceleration speed upon impact to 14 mph. Dr. Bassil Aish, who studies sports injuries, compares a hit at this velocity and impact to that of getting smashed in the skull with a sledge hammer. (Sports Science) This is staggering statistics and should make anyone squirm at the idea of putting our brains, our mental capacities at such risk, which could last a lifetime. So, what is a concussion? A concussion is defined as temporary unconsciousness caused by a blow to the head, which results in a temporary paralysis of the nervous function of the brain. As the trauma contacts the head, the brain impacted from the interior skull moves from one side hitting the other, causing damage to the two sites affected, called the coup and the contrecoup injuries. (Smadya) These effects are needed to be treated immediately; especially as such injuries could conclude in short term and long term consequences such as brain/bodily damage, cognitive deficits, emotional/social changes, and biochemical imbalances. So you would think football has come a long way to protect players from impacts to the head by providing helmets? Not so. Even Riddell, the famous brand that manufactures and produces all the football helmets used by adolescent age to

NFL, warned consumers that even a helmet that passed industry safety standards for protection against skull fractures and other severe head injuries could still leave a player with a 95 percent likelihood of receiving a concussion. The company also has been trying to make the game safer with new helmet technology, reducing an 80 g force normal impact to 40 g force. Thats still as much force as an F-16 pilot experiences! So what is the correlation of concussions with the lifespan of the individual? Many medical professionals debate and question but have found an uprising and finding in players depression, suicidal impulses, Alzheimers disease, and neurodegenerative condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. But variables are being taken into consideration as to not all players who have had a concussion are experiencing these symptoms, while Alzheimers disease and CTE are left unknown. So with the knowledge we do have, lets explore the cases where these symptoms have occurred and why they have occurred. For adolescents ages 5-14, is a time of experimenting and mirroring those of older players and their style of gameplay. As one would expect to see more brain injuries due to the adolescent developing brain, USA Football performed a study stating, Results found that only 4.3 percent of players from ages 5 to 14 had concussions and nearly 90 percent of youth players had no injuries that resulted in missing a game or practice. The most common injury reported among the 4,000 youth players surveyed over the past two years was bruises, which was 34 percent. (Solomon)This is surprising as most of us would think brain injuries would occur

much more than surveyed, but variables could conclude that many this age are just not strong enough or weigh enough to inflict so much force to the head. Increasing age, size, power, velocity, and stamina, comes with the change of game from boy to man. The brain is changing, growing, and maturing at this time. This category of age, may we take into more consideration of the facts stated previously in this document, the amount of force and velocity are being taken for concussions to occur more often. With these concussions, there have been reports of headaches, change in sleep patterns, nausea, dizziness, double vision, feeling foggy/sluggish, and memory problems. (University of Pittsburgh) Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University has been observing the brains of those who sustained concussions and were deceased. She studied a student, Pelly, who had died from his fourth concussion, as an 18 year old, high school senior football player. She observed tiny spots in the frontal lobe that found CTE. She claimed the brain is supposed to be pristine and youthful, but to see these spots on this young high school student was abnormal. (Breslow) Another example was Zack Lystedt, a freshman high school player, was
Figure 1 - Zack Lystedt with his mother, after his injury.

participating in a football game. He made a tackle where he hit his head hard on the

grass. He got up and played a few more plays till the game was done, and collapsed on the field. They rushed him to the hospital and found bleeding on the right and left side of the brain. He could not function anymore, as his whole brain construction

was changed. The cerebellum was damaged from the blow, causing him to remain unbalanced, constricting him to a wheelchair and his frontal lobe was damaged on impact, causing his speech to be very slow. (Breslow) These are long term effects that will not only affect him but other players as well. As for NFL players, the league has spent millions of dollars on research and prevention of concussions that they feel it is a great need to do so. On ESPN, a TV network devoted to sports performed an interview with former players Tony Dorsett, Leonard Marshall, and Joe DeLamaurrie of the game. They stated from the start of high school, to the end of their career, they dealt with headaches everyday! They said, From July to January, expect even more painful headaches. They also suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, nausea, and dementia. The newest research has been conducted by Dr. Julian Bailes, he has designed a brain scan to see if current/former players have CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Of the nine players that tested to see if they have the spots in their brain, all nine had signs of CTE. (William) They found that the amygdala was directly affected, which can account for memory loss and emotional outbursts or signs of depression. Also, they found the thalamus, located in the central part of the brain, was critically afflicted, which accounts for motor skills and not recognizing sleeping and awake states of the mind. This is scary as most of these mentioned can alter our lives so much, and would be difficult for someone who has this

Figure 2 - Pictured with the controlled brain scan looking for CTE, the difference of brain trauma caused from multiple blows to the head, affecting the amygdala, and thalamus.

damage to their brain, to go through. With these findings, doctors can relate CTE to depression, dementia, and suicide. Junior Seau, a hall of fame linebacker, committed suicide and his brain autopsy concluded he suffered from CTE as well. As with all players, the hope for the NFL is that all will be scanned in the future to prevent any known consequences with those that have CTE. Now with those long gone players from the sport, comes a tradition every year to induct someone into the Hall of Fame. One reporter who attended in 2012 said, The legends struggle to walk to the elevator. In 2062, will they even know what an elevator is? It's an overdramatic question, but it's the simplified version of everyone's fear, the worry at the heart of the neurological questionnaire. Some are now saying that the old pains of joints, muscles, and tendons being ruptured during games are being outweighed by the concerns of the brain. In conclusion to the reports, interviews, research, and medical advice, concussions are a crippling affect of sports, more knowingly football, to the human brain and the lifespan of its players. Whether its a moral question, football causes harm to those later in life. CTE is real and has been a force in the medical field for all sports, notably that of football players.

Works Cited Breslow, Jason. "." PBS. PBS, 31 Oct. 2013. Web. . <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/league-of-denial/high-school-footballplayers-face-bigger-concussion-risk/>. IMAGE PROVIDED BY IN FIGURE 1 "Concussions." Neurosurgery. University of Pittsburgh, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. . <http://www.neurosurgery.pitt.edu/centers-excellence/brain-and-spine-injury/concussions>. "Concussion hazards in youth football." YouTube. YouTube, 17 Jan. 2012. Web. . <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnIRso_04Ks>. J, Wright. "The Price of Football Fame." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 27 Aug. 2012. Web. . <http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8305947/is-there-generation-football-stars-alreadyruined-know-yet>. Smadya, Richard. "What happens to the brain during a concussion?." Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., 26 Apr. 1991. Web. . <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-to-thebrain/>. Solomon, Jon. "USA Football study: Concussions are less likely in young players." USA Football Study. AL.com, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. . <http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/02/usa_football_study_concussions.html>. "Sport Science: NFL Concussions and helmet to helmet collisions." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Oct. 2010. Web. . <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFkWTGKNLT8>. William Weinbaum and Steve Delsohn |. "Dorsett, others show signs of CTE." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 5 Apr. 2014. Web. . <http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9931754/former-nflstars-tony-dorsett-leonard-marshall-joe-delameilleure-show-indicators-cte-resulting-footballconcussions>. IMAGE PROVIDED ALSO IN FIGURE 2