ArticleBrain communications2023
Active elite rugby participation is associated with altered precentral cortical thickness.
Article in Brain communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Long-term neurobehavioral and neuroimaging outcomes in athletes with prior concussion(s) and head impact exposure.The Clinical neuropsychologist · 2025Review
- The Relationship of Prior Concussion and Contact Sport Exposure With Cortical Macro and Microstructure.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Brain health concerns in former rugby players: clinical and cognitive phenotypes.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- High-dimensional proteomic analysis for pathophysiological classification of traumatic brain injury.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is growing concern that elite rugby participation may negatively influence brain health, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Cortical thickness is a widely applied biomarker of grey matter structure, but there is limited research into how it may be altered in active professional rugby players. Cross-sectional MRI data from 44 active elite rugby players, including 21 assessed within 1 week of head injury, and 47 healthy controls were analysed. We investigated how active elite rugby participation with and without sub-acute traumatic brain injury influenced grey matter structure using whole cortex and region of interest cortical thickness analyses. Relationships between cortical thickness and biomarkers of traumatic brain injury, including fractional anisotropy, plasma neurofilament light and glial fibrillary acidic protein, were also examined. In whole-cortex analyses, precentral cortical thickness in the right hemisphere was lower in rugby players compared with controls, which was due to reductions in non-injured players.
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