For the study, the researchers compared white matter FA values among the male and female soccer players. The analysis revealed that while both men and women experienced lower FA values related to more repetitive heading, women exhibited lower FA levels across a much larger volume of brain tissue.
"In both groups, this effect we see in the brain's white matter increased with greater amounts of heading," Dr. Lipton said. "But women exhibit about five times as much microstructural abnormality as men when they have similar amounts of heading exposure."
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Researchers were also able to identify specific regions of the brain where frequent heading was associated with lower FA: three brain regions in men and eight brain regions in women.
"The important message from these findings is that there are individuals who are going to be more sensitive to heading than others," Dr. Lipton said. "Our study provides preliminary support that women are more sensitive to these types of head impacts at the level of brain tissue microstructure."
Dr. Lipton cautions that more investigation is warranted to confirm and further characterize gender differences in vulnerability to brain injury due to heading.
"We don't have enough information yet to establish guidelines to protect the players," Dr. Lipton said. "But by understanding these relationships--how different people have different levels of sensitivity to heading--we can get to the point of determining the need for gender-specific recommendations for safer soccer play."
"MRI-defined White Matter Microstructural Alteration Associated with Soccer Heading is More Extensive in Women than Men." Collaborating with Dr. Lipton were Todd G. Rubin, M.S., Eva Catenaccio, M.D., Roman Fleysher, Ph.D., Liane E. Hunter, M.S., Naomi Lubin, B.A., Walter F. Stewart, Ph.D., Mimi Kim, Sc.D., and Richard B. Lipton, M.D.
Radiology is edited by David A. Bluemke, M.D., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wis., and owned and published by the Radiological Society of North America, Inc.
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