Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Medicine, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
ICVS/3B's-PT Government Associate Laboratory, Braga/Guimarães, Portugal.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 10;15(8):e0235609. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235609. eCollection 2020.
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and, since it is a contact sport, players are at risk for head injury, including concussion. Here, we proposed to investigate the association of heading and concussion with macroscopic brain structure among adult amateur soccer players. For this study, 375 amateur soccer players (median age 23 years) completed HeadCount-12m to estimate heading over the 12 months prior to MRI and lifetime concussion. T1-weighted 3D magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo (MP-RAGE) MRI was performed at 3 Tesla. Parcellation was performed using Freesurfer to extract regional gray and white matter volumes as well as regional cortical thickness and total intracranial volume. Regional cortical brain volumes were normalized by total intracranial volume. We categorized heading into quartiles and concussion as 0, 1 or 2 or more. Generalized linear regressions were used to test the association of heading or concussion with each brain morphometry metric, including age and sex, as covariates. Neither heading nor concussion were associated with reduced brain volume or cortical thickness. We observed that greater heading was associated with greater gray matter volume in the left inferior parietal area, which may reflect effects related to training.
足球是世界上最受欢迎的运动，由于它是一项接触性运动，球员有头部受伤的风险，包括脑震荡。在这里，我们提出研究成年业余足球运动员头部撞击和脑震荡与大脑宏观结构的关系。在这项研究中，375 名业余足球运动员（中位数年龄 23 岁）完成了 HeadCount-12m，以估计在 MRI 前 12 个月和一生中的头球次数和脑震荡次数。在 3 Tesla 上进行了三维磁化准备快速获取梯度回波（MP-RAGE）MRI。使用 Freesurfer 进行分割，以提取区域灰质和白质体积以及区域皮质厚度和总颅内体积。区域皮质脑体积通过总颅内体积进行归一化。我们将头球分为四分位数，将脑震荡分为 0、1 或 2 次或更多次。使用广义线性回归检验头球或脑震荡与每个脑形态计量学指标的关联，包括年龄和性别作为协变量。头球和脑震荡都与脑容量或皮质厚度减少无关。我们观察到，更多的头球与左顶下区域的灰质体积增加有关，这可能反映了与训练有关的影响。
