ReviewInternational journal of environmental research and public health2022
Repeated Sub-Concussive Impacts and the Negative Effects of Contact Sports on Cognition and Brain Integrity.
Review in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biological Markers of Cognitive Impairments in Combat and Contact-Sport Athletes: A Systematic Review.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Persistent dysmorphology and dysfunction of the brain microvasculature following repeated trauma.Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism · 2026Article
- Article
- Non-concussive head impacts sustained during American football correlate with changes in gut microbiome diversity and composition.PloS one · 2026Article
- Living with the aftermath: family experiences of managing concussion and sport-related head injury.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Beyond the Hit: Muscle and Vascular Tissue Responses to Contact Exposure in Collision Sports-A Narrative Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Review
- Potential Concussion Events of a Leading Team in the Spanish Male Professional Soccer League: Incidence, Refereeing Actions, Medical Consequences and Return-to-Play.Sports medicine - open · 2025Article
- Evaluating the Probability of Head Acceleration Events in Elite Men's and Women's Rugby Union Match-Play: The Impact of Tackle Height and Body Position.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Article
- Neural oscillation mechanisms of repetitive subconcussive impacts: a network study of microstate-specific cross-frequency coupling.The journal of headache and pain · 2025Article
- Contact and Head Acceleration Characteristics of a Women's Rugby Union Team During an International Tournament.European journal of sport science · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying cardiovascular adaptations to exercise: A narrative review.Physiological reports · 2025Review
- Long-Term Cognitive Decline in MMA Fighters: A Two-Year Cohort Study on Executive Function Impairments Due to Repetitive Head Strikes.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Repetitive concussions promote microglia-mediated engulfment of presynaptic excitatory input associated with cognitive dysfunction.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Adverse impact of female reproductive signaling on age-dependent neurodegeneration after mild head trauma ineLife · 2024Article
- When to Pull the Trigger: Conceptual Considerations for Approximating Head Acceleration Events Using Instrumented Mouthguards.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Review
- Instrumented Mouthguards in Elite-Level Men's and Women's Rugby Union: The Incidence and Propensity of Head Acceleration Events in Matches.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Article
- The Use of Biofluid Markers to Evaluate the Consequences of Sport-Related Subconcussive Head Impact Exposure: A Scoping Review.Sports medicine - open · 2024Article
- Instrumented mouthguards in elite-level men's and women's rugby union: characterising tackle-based head acceleration events.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2024Article
- Dismissing the idea that basketball is a "contactless" sport: quantifying contacts during professional gameplay.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- Position-based assessment of head impact frequency, severity, type, and location in high school American football.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sports are yielding a wealth of benefits for cardiovascular fitness, for psychological resilience, and for cognition. The amount of practice, and the type of practiced sports, are of importance to obtain these benefits and avoid any side effects. This is especially important in the context of contact sports. Contact sports are not only known to be a major source of injuries of the musculoskeletal apparatus, they are also significantly related to concussion and sub-concussion. Sub-concussive head impacts accumulate throughout the active sports career, and thus can cause measurable deficits and changes to brain health. Emerging research in the area of cumulative sub-concussions in contact sports has revealed several associated markers of brain injury. For example, recent studies discovered that repeated headers in soccer not only cause measurable signs of cognitive impairment but are also related to a prolonged cortical silent period in transcranial magnetic stimulation measurements. Other cognitive and neuroimaging biomarkers are also pointing to adverse effects of heading. A range of fluid biomarkers completes the picture of cumulating effects of sub-concussive impacts. Those accumulating effects can cause significant cognitive impairment later in life of active contact sportswomen and men. The aim of this review is to highlight the current scientific evidence on the effects of repeated sub-concussive head impacts on contact sports athletes' brains, identify the areas in need of further investigation, highlight the potential of advanced neuroscientific methods, and comment on the steps governing bodies have made to address this issue. We conclude that there are indeed neural and biofluid markers that can help better understand the effects of repeated sub-concussive head impacts and that some aspects of contact sports should be redefined, especially in situations where sub-concussive impacts and concussions can be minimized.
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What 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.