This study reviewed over five years of footage of more than a thousand National Football League American football games to find 41 videos where neurological events, such as lack of consciousness or severe head injury, were seen. Moving forwards, we may be able to predict what type of head impact might produce neurological problems and use this information to reduce this risk.' Modelling brain injuries It suggests that a key factor is how much strain is placed on brain regions involved in maintaining arousal.

'The results help us understand the neurological reasons why some players lose consciousness after head impacts. Senior author Professor David Sharp, Centre Director at the UK DRI Care Research & Technology Centre and Associate Director of the Imperial Centre for Injury Studies said: These results provide further evidence of what brain structures are responsible for consciousness, and highlights the use of computational models when looking at outcomes after injuries to the brain.' 'These results provide further evidence of what brain structures are responsible for consciousness.' Dr Karl Zimmerman, Imperial College London The brainstem regions of the brain also experienced higher forces, or “brain strain”, during these impacts which suggests this region plays a part in losing consciousness after a head injury.ĭr Karl Zimmerman, lead author of the research from Imperial’s Department of Brain Sciences said: 'Our results using computational models of brain injuries match up with what has been seen when looking at real, damaged brains. They found that athletes who became unconscious experienced injuries involving head impacts at higher speeds.

These models were used to compare injuries of athletes who had lost consciousness to those who remained awake to find out what parts of the brain were responsible for a loss of consciousness event. The study at Imperial College London, analysed videos of head impacts in American football players and modelled strain and strain rate on the brain following an injury.īrain strain measures how much brain deformation occurs after injury whereas strain rate is how quickly the impact took place. Imperial experts are closer to discovering the reason why some people lose consciousness following sports-related head injuries.

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