ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2021
Age at First Exposure to Tackle Football is Associated with Cortical Thickness in Former Professional American Football Players.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Younger Age of First Exposure to American Football Is Associated with Worse Informant-Reported Clinical Outcomes in Older Age Brain Donors.Journal of neurotrauma · 2026Article
- Dose-dependent white matter changes associated with repetitive head impacts in former American football players.Brain communications · 2026Article
- Single- versus two-test criteria for cognitive impairment: associations with CSF and imaging markers in former American football players.The Clinical neuropsychologist · 2025Article
- The Association Between Age of First Exposure to American Football at a Young Age and Later-Life Health Issues in Healthy, Community-Dwelling Adults.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Multimodal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reveals Improvement in Verbal Fluency Over Time in Moderate-to-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.Neurotrauma reports · 2025Article
- Shape analysis of the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus in former American football players.Brain communications · 2025Article
- Sulcal morphology in former American football players.Brain communications · 2025Article
- Brain morphometry in former American football players: findings from the DIAGNOSE CTE research project.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Article
- American Football Play and Parkinson Disease Among Men.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- White matter hyperintensities in former American football players.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2023Article
- Long-Term Changes in Brain Connectivity Reflected in Quantitative Electrophysiology of Symptomatic Former National Football League Players.Journal of neurotrauma · 2023Article
- Active elite rugby participation is associated with altered precentral cortical thickness.Brain communications · 2023Article
- Correspondence of mean apparent propagator MRI metrics with phosphorylated tau and astrogliosis in chronic traumatic encephalopathy.Brain communications · 2023Article
- Cortical Thinning in High-Grade Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis.Journal of stroke · 2023Article
- Decreased myelin proteins in brain donors exposed to football-related repetitive head impacts.Brain communications · 2023Article
- Developing methods to detect and diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy during life: rationale, design, and methodology for the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2021Article
- Age of First Exposure to Contact and Collision Sports and Later in Life Brain Health: A Narrative Review.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Review
- Clinical Features of Patients with Alzheimer's Disease and a History of Traumatic Brain Injury.Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders extraArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Younger age at first exposure (AFE) to repetitive head impacts while playing American football increases the risk for later-life neuropsychological symptoms and brain alterations. However, it is not known whether AFE is associated with cortical thickness in American football players. Sixty-three former professional National Football League players (55.5 ± 7.7 years) with cognitive, behavioral, and mood symptoms underwent neuroimaging and neuropsychological testing. First, the association between cortical thickness and AFE was tested. Second, the relationship between clusters of decreased cortical thickness and verbal and visual memory, and composite measures of mood/behavior and attention/psychomotor speed was assessed. AFE was positively correlated with cortical thickness in the right superior frontal cortex (cluster-wise P value [CWP] = 0.0006), the left parietal cortex (CWP = 0.0003), and the occipital cortices (right: CWP = 0.0023; left: CWP = 0.0008). A positive correlation was found between cortical thickness of the right superior frontal cortex and verbal memory (R = 0.333, P = 0.019), and the right occipital cortex and visual memory (R = 0.360, P = 0.012). In conclusion, our results suggest an association between younger AFE and decreased cortical thickness, which in turn is associated with worse neuropsychological performance. Furthermore, an association between younger AFE and signs of neurodegeneration later in life in symptomatic former American football players seems likely.
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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.