What Happens To a Football Player's Neurons?

An anonymous reader writes "It seems like every week there's a new story about the consequences of all those concussions experienced by football players and other athletes — just a few days ago, the NY Times reported that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease may actually have a neural disease brought on by head trauma. But missing in these stories is an explanation of what head trauma actually does to the brain cells. Now Carl Zimmer has filled in the gap with a column that takes a look at how neurons respond to stress, and explains how stretching a neuron's axon turns its internal structure into 'mush.'"

Comments

Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

.........I didn't know athletes/footballers had neurons.

True geniuses?

[mangu]

Yet there are people who argue that football is a game based on sophisticated strategies, that anyone able to play it proficiently must have an intelligence on the higher outliers of genius.

Now it seems that "mushy" neurons are good enough...

Re:True geniuses?

[P0ltergeist333]

I completely disagree. No offensive scheme or technique on it's own is a match for a good linebacker or DB who can read offenses. And no defensive scheme or technique on it's own is a match for a good quarterback and skilled players who can read defenses and adjust on the fly. Linemen need to be able to make split second decisions and reads and adjust accordingly. I cannot reconcile your statement with reality at all.

Re:True geniuses?

[antifoidulus]

Define "smart", experience has shown us that measuring intelligence as a single vector is folly. It does take a certain kind of intelligence to be able to quickly read and react to the changing conditions on the field. However that same intelligence may not necessarily be very applicable to designing a particle collider and vice-versa. To put it another way, you really cannot say that "Einstein was smarter than Mozart" because that statement really depends on how you define "smart". I'm sure if Einstein decided to become a composer he probably could have wrote something passable since he was quite intelligent, but I doubt it would have reached the level of Mozart. And I'm sure if Mozart was a scientist in the early 20th century he probably could have made a living at it but I doubt he would have excelled to the level of Einstein.

Re:True geniuses?

[DigiShaman]

Led Gardner places intelligence into eight groups. Logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. They're all lateral to each other. To this day, his idea on the subject is controversial.

Re:Don't forget about their scrotums.

[couchslug]

This thread is worthless without pics!

Re:Don't forget about their scrotums.

[mangu]

Athletes who use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs often have horribly shrunken and deformed testes and scrotums.

So, you have to be really dumb to use steroids. The prosecution rests.

feh

[AdmiralXyz]

This is all just a conspiracy by the liberal media to destroy an American pasttime. There's still no REAL proof that football causes any blane dibblage.

American Football is not Football

[hernol]

Just to point, we are talking about American Football, not Football. It's not the same.

Re:American Football is not Football

[AnonymousClown]

Actually, football (soccer here in the US) has risk factors of its own including heading the ball causes neuronal damage.

Re:American Football is not Football

[PotatoFarmer]

Just to point, we are talking about American Football, not Football. It's not the same.

True. A medical story regarding non-American Football would likely cover one of these topics instead:

1. How a nudge to the shoulder can translate into a compound leg fracture.
2. How grabbing your shin while writhing on the ground can partially alleviate the pain of a compound leg fracture.
3. Whatever is in those magical spray cans the trainers carry around, and how they can instantly heal a compound leg fracture immediately after a penalty has been awarded.

Re:American Football is not Football

[Barefoot Monkey]

Just to point, we are talking about American Football, not Football. It's not the same.

I think you mean to say that we are talking about American Football and not Association Football, known to some by its abbreviated name soccer and to others simply as football. American Football is a ball game played on foot, and thus is very much a type of football. In fact Rugby is also football - hence the Rugby Football Union.

See wikipedia's article on the word Football

Re:American Football is not Football

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Myron Rolle, who finished his undergraduate degree in pre-med in 2½ years and then studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and was drafted by the Titans last spring?

Re:American Football is not Football

[xSander]

There are head injuries in soccer as well, not because of heading the ball (though accidentally being in the way of a shot can cause concussions) but because of clashing heads.

Re:American Football is not Football

[jez9999]

And while there's contact all the time, soccer players are too fast/agile to do much damage.

Not really, it's just that football players are miraculous creatures, their bodies heal amazingly fast. Have you seen the number of times Ronaldo has had a fracture and been rolling around the ground in pain, and been up and running a minute later? Amazing.

The amount of replies to this story

[Anarki2004]

The number of replies to this story seems to indicate that perhaps a vast majority of slashdotters don't particularly like football players. I was actually hoping for some technical insight and whatnot, but it would seem everybody is still maintaining the same attitude they had in high school.

Re:The amount of replies to this story

[Ethanol-fueled]

Funny thing is, at least in places (not Texas) that don't take high school football too seriously, football is an excellent opportunity for a nerd to get into the "in" crowd.

In fact, it's how I became "cool." It didn't matter how well you played or how annoying or ugly you were, as long as you survived hell week and stuck with the team, you were in with the cool people(and, by extension, the juniors and seniors and the parties that they threw and all the pussy surrounding that whole scene). You were allowed to scream, cuss, punch lockers, high-five, whatever you had to do to shrug off the pain...as long as you took your hits and didn't cry like a bitch on the field.

Plus, a working knowledge of sports makes it much easier to bond with others and make new friends. And, of course, the health benefits. Now if only those damn San Diego Chargers would quit taking bribes and fucking up in the playoffs so I can see them win at least one super bowl before I die.

Re:The amount of replies to this story

[Knuckles]

Everybody knows that the only healthy thing you can do is to sit at a desk with a computer for 50 years!!

Re:The amount of replies to this story

[blind biker]

Funny thing is, at least in places (not Texas) that don't take high school football too seriously, football is an excellent opportunity for a nerd to get into the "in" crowd.

In fact, it's how I became "cool." It didn't matter how well you played or how annoying or ugly you were, as long as you survived hell week and stuck with the team, you were in with the cool people(and, by extension, the juniors and seniors and the parties that they threw and all the pussy surrounding that whole scene).

No, actually, the funny thing is how in the USA (maybe also Canada?) you so ridiculously obsess about being popular, being with the "in" people. Is being yourself so scary, over there?

While I believe that there is some peer pressure to conform, everywhere, in the USA it seems it has become grotesque.

Re:So maybe it wasn't just a coincidence

[Maarx]

Lou Gehrig May Not Have Had Lou Gehrig’s Disease

Handegg

[Anonymous Coward]

An effeminate version of rugby.

Read about it in GQ

[djlemma]

The October 2009 issue of GQ had a major article about this. Click to read it here.

I found the article actually pretty fascinating, but it is a bit of a narrative about this particular doctor's quest to bring his research into the public eye.

Also, who knew GQ had such a fantastic catalog of their back-issues? I think I might have to read their stuff more often. I know it's very un-slashdot of me, but whatever.

Re:Wa...?

[blair1q]

Pretty much everything, but to be able to rub the lotion on Giselle's back on the beach in Ipanema might be the simplest way to express it.

hmm

[nomadic]

I remember seeing an article very recently (on Slashdot maybe) that pointed out that boxing got more dangerous when they started using padded gloves, because that let the boxers hit with all their strength. Take away the football helmets and pads and you might get more contusions and cuts, but less brain damage; it would be more like rugby with the players hitting each other much more softly.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's an accurate assessment about football vs. rugby that's brought up occasionally. Rugby players would kill themselves (literally) if they hit with equal force. But football players would be on the ground exhausted if they ran just half as much as their counterparts.

Professional boxers greatly outmatch even most football players when it comes to sustaining insane amounts of head trauma. But somehow that discussion is culturally taboo or something.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Those two articles observe that increased regulation and improved helmet safety resulted in less injuries. You allude to players tackling more strongly when better equipment safely allowed them to. The OP posited that players without padding and helmets would consciously elect to tackle with less impact, reducing injuries of their own volition. None of these three observations conflict.

Re:hmm

[westlake]

Take away the football helmets and pads and you might get more contusions and cuts, but less brain damage; it would be more like rugby with the players hitting each other much more softly

College football had become so lethal around 1900 that the game came within an inch of being abandoned.

The 1905 season...brought its rash of casualties. There were twenty-three football deaths. Only a handful took place in intercollegiate play, but one in particular set in motion the movement to reform the game. In a match between Union College and New York University, Harold Moore of Union died after being kicked in the head. Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken of NYU seized the opportunity to summon a reform conference.

In the 1906 season and for two years following, the verdict on the "new football" was generally favorable. In spite of fluctuations in the injury count, the number of deaths dropped to fourteen, fifteen, and ten.

Then, in the fall of 1909, the trend toward a safer game abruptly reversed itself. In a match between Harvard and West Point, the Army captain, Eugene Byrne, exhausted by continual plays to his side of the line, was fatally injured. Earl Wilson of the Naval Academy was paralyzed and later died as a result of a flying tackle. And the University of Virginia's halfback Archer Christian died after a game against Georgetown, probably from a cerebral hemorrhage suffered in a plunge through the line. . "Does the public need any more proof," wrote the Washington Post, "that football is a brutal, savage, murderous sport? Is it necessary to kill many more promising young men before the game is revised or stopped altogether?" President David Starr Jordan of Stanford referred to football as "Rugby's American pervert..."

Early headgear, seldom worn consistently, shielded the ears and surface of the head but gave inadequate protection to the skull and brain. After World War I a sponge-rubber lining was added to the crown of the helmet, and by the late 1930s a sturdy leather helmet with an inner felt lining was being used. But it was not until 1943 that all players were required to wear headgear. The plastic helmet, which distributes shock more evenly, was introduced in the 1940s amid objections reminiscent of those that accompanied the original solely leather helmets. Some critics argued--and still do--that the hard plastic helmet, used as an offensive weapon, has as much potential for causing as for preventing serious injuries. Inventing Modern Football

Boxing is not a real sport

[billstewart]

The objective in boxing is to cause sufficient brain trauma to your opponent that he loses consciousness or can no longer stand up. That's not a sport, that's barbarism, and has no business in a civilized society. the short term, it's highly dangerous, and in the long term it can turn you into what's left of Muhammad Ali.

By contrast, wrestling is a real sport, in spite of the fact that professional boxing is for real and professional wrestling is as much fake showmanship as sport. (And yes, just because it's fake doesn't mean than any of those guys can't throw my ass out of the ring, and look good doing it.)