"Heading" the ball might affect amateur soccer players' brain health, a new study says.
Players who used their heads to pass or deflect a soccer ball were more likely to develop changes within the folds of their brains, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Neurology. These folds are in the wrinkly outer area of the brain called the cerebral cortex.
Athletes with more of these brain changes performed worse on cognitive tests, researchers said.
"People who experienced more impacts from headers had more disruptions within a specific layer in the folds of the brain, and that these disruptions were also linked to poorer performance on thinking and memory tests," senior researcher Dr. Michael Lipton, a professor of radiology with Columbia University said in a news release.
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