Contributors

Monday, October 21, 2013

A Link Between Sleep and Football Dementia?

Scientists have long wondered why people and animals need to sleep. We all know that not sleeping is bad for us, but we didn't know exactly why.

For decades scientists have known that sleep is associated with the consolidation of short-term to long term memory. Recently they discovered that during sleep neurons fire backwards, which they think strengthens the electrical signals of nearby and frees up space in the brain for new memories (sort of like defragging your computer's hard disk).

But a new study has found an even more basic mechanism that explains the need for sleep: housecleaning. While asleep, brain cells appear to shrink and cerebrospinal fluid is pumped through the brain to wash out toxins that accumulate during wakefulness. These toxins are beta amyloids, the proteins that are associated with dementias like Alzheimer's.

Interestingly, dementias are frequently associated with sleep disorders, which could explain why Alzheimer's occurs in the first place. With this information new therapies may be developed to prevent dementias that leave their victims empty husks of the people they once were.

And this may explain other forms of dementia. A few weeks ago PBS aired a Frontline special on concussions in football called "League of Denial." It documents the stories of numerous football players who suffered various forms of dementia after taking dozens of knocks to the head every day they play, from the age of eight or ten until they retire at 30 or 40. That results in literally thousands of minor concussions over a career. Many football players have become confused, short-tempered violent and some have even committed suicide and murder.

When the brains of these players have been examined after death, they were found riddled with the same beta amyloid plaques that affect Alzheimer's patients, though their brains looked otherwise normal. With this new understanding of how the brain normally cleans these plaques out, the exact mechanism for dementia in football players may become clearer.

When you get a concussion, your brain is slammed against the inside of your skull, essentially bruising it and rupturing capillaries, which causes swelling and inflammation. This may in turn prevent the brain cells from shrinking during sleep and interfere with the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid that should remove the beta amyloid plaques.

The NFL has downplayed the effects of concussion on football players for years, but last August they settled a lawsuit brought by 4,500 former players for $765 million dollars. And it's not just football that has this problem, we've known forever that boxing causes dementia, and hockey and rugby have the same problem.

This new science may explain why dementia occurs, but it doesn't provide any solutions for preventing concussions in the first place. No matter how much you change helmet design, the basic problem is the rapid deceleration of the brain when it hits the inside of the skull as the head collides with another player or slams into the ground.

The only real way to prevent concussions is to reduce the overall velocity of the skull, which means eliminating crushing tackles and brutal takedowns. But many football fans would say that changing the rules to minimize concussions would turn it into touch football and rip the heart out of the game. Because, though they say they love watching the skill and speed of the players on the gridiron, what they really love is the brutal hammering the players take.

As we understand the connection of minor brain trauma to dementia, the question now is how many parents will be willing to sacrifice their children's futures so that football fans can watch them get pounded into the astroturf?

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