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Pretty cool report on research being done at Stanford about what happens to your brain when you take a hard hit during a game:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...this-players-skull-football-concussions.html?
tl;dr
Getting hit hurts your brain in interesting and complex ways that people are starting to model based on neuroanatomy.It isn't just concussions, but sub-concussive hits seem to have a cumulative effect. Like boxing, football is not a brain-safe sport. Know that going in.
-------------------------------
As we've talked about previously, it's not just about concussion. There are dozens or more sub-concussive hits every game, and people are starting to measure those as well. It's about correlating cumulative head-impacts with specific effects to specific parts of the brain, based on particular anatomical features of the brain
For instance, I hadn't considered the effects of connective tissue like the falx cerebri (it's sort of like velcro that connects the middle of the brain to the skull), which seems to be important in generating internal torsion on the corpus collosum (the highway the two cortical hemispheres use to talk to communicate with one another). Frankly if that was the worst damage they'd be fine you can do ok without your corpus callosum: it is a common treatment for epilepsy to simply go in there and cut that sucker.
My bigger worry is that there is actually a *huge* calcified mat of such connective tissue between the cerebellum and the rest of the brain that they don't talk about in the video, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were all sorts of cerebellar damage coming up based on this kind of biomechanical torque within the brain--when I take out rat brains it is the biggest pain the ass to pry out, and hard to do without damaging something. And cerebellum damage leads to all sorts of issues with fine motor control.
Unfortunately there is no intra-brain helmet, what they will likely find is that hits to the head--all hits to the head--are bad. And there is no real magic threshold below which it is ok to take hits (you know, within reason: shaking your head yes to a friend who asked you a question is probably fine). Rather my guess is the graph will show worse damage with harder/more hits. And the best way to prevent damage is to minimize number, and force, of the hits.
But what will be interesting is that the damage will not all be identical. Hits to the side are not the same as hits to the front, top, bottom, whatever. There are specific biomechanical forces at play, based on connective tissue, skull shape, and other factors. The NFL could ultimately shape the rules based on such studies.
Obviously better helmets can reduce the force of each hit. And NFL rules can minimize how often high impact hits are being delivered unnecessarily.
A naive person could ask, why is the RB not protected, and only defenseless receivers? Why is it OK for Pollard to destroy Ridley's head but not someone who just caught the ball?
New England Patriots running back Stevan Ridley fumbles after big hit
Is his brain less valuable because he is a RB? I'm purposely being silly here. I know the answer is because at some point the RB is pretty much all helmet when he is crouched down, running forward with the ball, facing forward. Where else are you supposed to hit him if you are in front of him?
On the other hand, do you have to hit him with your helmet? It seems helmet-to-helmet contact should pretty much be banned, or at least this should be seriously looked at. Like when that receiver head-butted Butler last week. That was pretty much, "Here I'm going to injure your brain now because I'm a ****." I'm thinking that is as bad as facemasking by an offensive player on a defender.
On the other hand, we all need to accept that football is a game, like boxing, that literally cannot avoid that it has concomitant head injuries, and all the NFL can do is try to minimize them as much as possible. Players need to go into it knowing this, don't ******** them. If you play football, you will get hit in the head, and you can reasonably expect to take minor brain injuries as a result. You will not see their effects right away, they will accumulate over time, likely over many years.
A sample of some of the types of papers coming out of the lab:
Wu LC, Laksari K, Kuo C, Luck JF, Kleiven S, Bass CR, Camarillo DB. "Bandwidth and sample rate requirements for wearable head impact sensors." Journal of Biomechanics, in press, 2016
Kuo C, Wu LC, Hammoor BT, Luck JF, Cutcliffe HC, Lynall RC, Kait JR, Campbell KR, Mihalik JP, Bass CR, Camarillo DB. "Effect of the mandible on mouthguard measurements of head kinematics." Journal of Biomechanics, vol. 29, no. 9, pp. 1845-1853, 2016
Hernandez F, Shull PB, Camarillo DB. "Evaluation of a laboratory model of human head impact biomechanics." Journal of Biomechanics. vol. 48, no. 12, pp.3469-77, 2015
Laksari K, Wu LC, Kurt M, Kuo C, Camarillo DB. "Resonance of human brain under head acceleration." Journal of The Royal Society Interface. vol. 12, no. 108, pp. 20150331. 2015
Hernandez F, Wu LC, Yip MC, Laksari K, Hoffman AR, Lopez JR, Grant G, Kleiven S, Camarillo DB. "Six degree of freedom measurements of human mild traumatic brain injury." Annals of Biomedical Engineering. vol. 43, no. 8, pp. 1918-34, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...this-players-skull-football-concussions.html?
tl;dr
Getting hit hurts your brain in interesting and complex ways that people are starting to model based on neuroanatomy.It isn't just concussions, but sub-concussive hits seem to have a cumulative effect. Like boxing, football is not a brain-safe sport. Know that going in.
-------------------------------
As we've talked about previously, it's not just about concussion. There are dozens or more sub-concussive hits every game, and people are starting to measure those as well. It's about correlating cumulative head-impacts with specific effects to specific parts of the brain, based on particular anatomical features of the brain
For instance, I hadn't considered the effects of connective tissue like the falx cerebri (it's sort of like velcro that connects the middle of the brain to the skull), which seems to be important in generating internal torsion on the corpus collosum (the highway the two cortical hemispheres use to talk to communicate with one another). Frankly if that was the worst damage they'd be fine you can do ok without your corpus callosum: it is a common treatment for epilepsy to simply go in there and cut that sucker.
My bigger worry is that there is actually a *huge* calcified mat of such connective tissue between the cerebellum and the rest of the brain that they don't talk about in the video, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were all sorts of cerebellar damage coming up based on this kind of biomechanical torque within the brain--when I take out rat brains it is the biggest pain the ass to pry out, and hard to do without damaging something. And cerebellum damage leads to all sorts of issues with fine motor control.
Unfortunately there is no intra-brain helmet, what they will likely find is that hits to the head--all hits to the head--are bad. And there is no real magic threshold below which it is ok to take hits (you know, within reason: shaking your head yes to a friend who asked you a question is probably fine). Rather my guess is the graph will show worse damage with harder/more hits. And the best way to prevent damage is to minimize number, and force, of the hits.
But what will be interesting is that the damage will not all be identical. Hits to the side are not the same as hits to the front, top, bottom, whatever. There are specific biomechanical forces at play, based on connective tissue, skull shape, and other factors. The NFL could ultimately shape the rules based on such studies.
Obviously better helmets can reduce the force of each hit. And NFL rules can minimize how often high impact hits are being delivered unnecessarily.
A naive person could ask, why is the RB not protected, and only defenseless receivers? Why is it OK for Pollard to destroy Ridley's head but not someone who just caught the ball?
New England Patriots running back Stevan Ridley fumbles after big hit
Is his brain less valuable because he is a RB? I'm purposely being silly here. I know the answer is because at some point the RB is pretty much all helmet when he is crouched down, running forward with the ball, facing forward. Where else are you supposed to hit him if you are in front of him?
On the other hand, do you have to hit him with your helmet? It seems helmet-to-helmet contact should pretty much be banned, or at least this should be seriously looked at. Like when that receiver head-butted Butler last week. That was pretty much, "Here I'm going to injure your brain now because I'm a ****." I'm thinking that is as bad as facemasking by an offensive player on a defender.
On the other hand, we all need to accept that football is a game, like boxing, that literally cannot avoid that it has concomitant head injuries, and all the NFL can do is try to minimize them as much as possible. Players need to go into it knowing this, don't ******** them. If you play football, you will get hit in the head, and you can reasonably expect to take minor brain injuries as a result. You will not see their effects right away, they will accumulate over time, likely over many years.
A sample of some of the types of papers coming out of the lab:
Wu LC, Laksari K, Kuo C, Luck JF, Kleiven S, Bass CR, Camarillo DB. "Bandwidth and sample rate requirements for wearable head impact sensors." Journal of Biomechanics, in press, 2016
Kuo C, Wu LC, Hammoor BT, Luck JF, Cutcliffe HC, Lynall RC, Kait JR, Campbell KR, Mihalik JP, Bass CR, Camarillo DB. "Effect of the mandible on mouthguard measurements of head kinematics." Journal of Biomechanics, vol. 29, no. 9, pp. 1845-1853, 2016
Hernandez F, Shull PB, Camarillo DB. "Evaluation of a laboratory model of human head impact biomechanics." Journal of Biomechanics. vol. 48, no. 12, pp.3469-77, 2015
Laksari K, Wu LC, Kurt M, Kuo C, Camarillo DB. "Resonance of human brain under head acceleration." Journal of The Royal Society Interface. vol. 12, no. 108, pp. 20150331. 2015
Hernandez F, Wu LC, Yip MC, Laksari K, Hoffman AR, Lopez JR, Grant G, Kleiven S, Camarillo DB. "Six degree of freedom measurements of human mild traumatic brain injury." Annals of Biomedical Engineering. vol. 43, no. 8, pp. 1918-34, 2015
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