Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith is sacked
Nov 30, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith (11) is sacked by Denver Broncos strong safety T.J. Ward (43) during the first half at Arrowhead Stadium. Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

According to a recent study, teenage players of American football show "brain changes" after playing for one season. The changes in their brain, however, do not take place due to any concussion during the season.

Researchers said that the abnormalities in young American football players were similar to those due to mild traumatic brain injury. The small study, presented to the Radiological Society of North America, was conducted among 24 players between the age of 16 and 18. They had devices on their helmets that were used to measure head impacts during a game. BBC reported that several recent reports had expressed concerns over contact sports causing potential damage on young brains. However, those studies were based on brain changes that had taken place due to concussion. This study, on the other hand, focuses on the impacts on a developing brain even when they player do not suffer concussion during the season.

Detailed scans of players' brains were used before the season to compare those with the ones taken after the season. Researchers were able to notice changes to the white matter of the brain that contained millions of nerve fibres acting as communication cables among several regions of the brain. The players who got hit more often and harder were more likely to have the changes during the post-season comparative analysis of brain scans. The study, nevertheless, did not focus on the functionality of the brain. That was why the cognitive effect of the observed brain-structure changes was unknown, Bloomberg reported.

According to a 2013 analysis of 80 Division I college football and ice-hockey players, the more a player's brain showed changes in a single season, the worse the player performed on memory and learning tests. Christopher Whitlow of Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina said that a lot about the "brain changes" were unknown. The associate professor of radiology said that it was not known if the changes persisted over time or went away. He said that such questions, though not answered at the moment, are going to be studied in the future. Whitlow said that the risks could be intervened and decreased if those were identified.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au