Soccer Heading Does Most Damage to Brain Area Critical for Cognition, Brain Imaging Study Finds

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

A brain imaging technique developed by Columbia researchers has identified areas in the brain’s cerebral cortex—just behind the forehead—that are most damaged by the repetitive impacts from heading a soccer ball. Their study also found that the damage leads to cognitive deficits seen in soccer players who head the ball frequently.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, was conducted in amateur adult soccer players from New York City.

“What’s important about our study is that it shows, really for the first time, that exposure to repeated head impacts causes specific changes in the brain that, in turn, impair cognitive function,” says study leader Michael Lipton, MD, Ph.D., professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Lipton’s team performed dMRI scans on 352 adult amateur soccer players, who reported varying levels of heading over the previous year, and on 77 age-matched athletes not involved in collision sports. All players took simple learning and memory tests.

The most fervent headers of the ball—reporting more than 1,000 headers each year—had significantly fuzzier transitions between gray and white matter in the orbitofrontal region but not in other regions further back in the brain. Players who most frequently headed the ball also performed a few points worse on tests of learning and memory compared to players who did little to no heading.

Greater damage in the transition zone linked head impacts to worse test performance.

“It’s very strong evidence that these microstructural changes are likely to be a cause of cognitive deficits,” Lipton says.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-soccer-brain-area-critical-cognition.html