ReviewNeuropsychology review2003
The neuropsychology of heading and head trauma in Association Football (soccer): a review.
Review in Neuropsychology review, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Cognitive Effects of Heading in Professional Football: A Systematic Review.International journal of sports medicine · 2025Pooled it
- The Influence of Head Impact Threshold for Reporting Data in Contact and Collision Sports: Systematic Review and Original Data Analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2016Pooled it
- Orbitofrontal Gray-White Interface Injury and the Association of Soccer Heading With Verbal Learning.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Heading Frequency and Risk of Cognitive Impairment in Retired Male Professional Soccer Players.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Where are We Headed? Evidence to Inform Future Football Heading Guidelines.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Review
- Headers and concussions in elite female and male football: a pilot study.South African journal of sports medicine · 2023Article
- Cases of head injuries in football sport: A case study of Ghaziabad District, Uttar Pradesh.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- Immediate Effects of Stabilization Exercises on Trunk Muscle Activity during Jump Header Shooting: A Pilot Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The Effect of Sub-Concussive Impacts during a Rugby Tackling Drill on Brain Function.Brain sciences · 2020Article
- Heading for trouble: is dementia a game changer for football?British journal of sports medicine · 2019Article
- Validation of HeadCount-2w for estimation of two-week heading: Comparison to daily reporting in adult amateur player.Journal of science and medicine in sport · 2018Observational
- Recent and Long-Term Soccer Heading Exposure Is Differentially Associated With Neuropsychological Function in Amateur Players.Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS · 2018Article
- Article
- English professional football players concussion knowledge and attitude.Journal of sport and health science · 2016Article
- Concussion in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.Current pain and headache reports · 2015Review
- Soccer heading is associated with white matter microstructural and cognitive abnormalities.Radiology · 2013Article
- Evidence of cognitive dysfunction after soccer playing with ball heading using a novel tablet-based approach.PloS one · 2013Article
- No neurochemical evidence for brain injury caused by heading in soccer.British journal of sports medicine · 2007Article
- No cumulative effects for one or two previous concussions.British journal of sports medicine · 2006Article
- Head injuries.British journal of sports medicine · 2005Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Association Football (soccer) is the most popular and widespread sport in the world. A significant proportion of the injuries suffered in football are head injuries involving trauma to the brain. In normal play, head trauma frequently arises from collisions, but some researchers have claimed that it also may arise as a consequence of heading the ball. Although assessments based on biomechanical analyses are equivocal on the potential for brain injury due to football heading, a growing literature seems to support the claim that neuropsychological impairment results from general football play and football heading in particular. However, this review suggests a distinction is required between the neuropsychological effects of concussive and subconcussive head trauma and that all of the neuropsychological studies conducted so far suffer from methodological problems. At best, a few of these studies may be regarded as exploratory. The review concludes that presently, although there is exploratory evidence of subclinical neuropsychological impairment as a consequence of football-related concussions, there is no reliable and certainly no definitive evidence that such impairment occurs as a result of general football play or normal football heading. The neuropsychological consequences of football-related subconcussive effects await confirmatory investigation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
14584910What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.