Bumping Your Head Promotes Brain Aging

Scientists at the University of Michigan (U-M), in the United States, have discovered that suffering from head trauma, bumps or concussions can boost the natural aging process of the human brain.

In a series of new experiments, the team determined that those who hit their heads were most likely to display more broken signaling pathways in the brain than peers who had never suffered head injuries or concussions.

Neural pathways break down naturally as the brain ages, but the process can apparently be promoted by impacts affecting the head. The team that has made the discovery is based at the School of Kinesiology and the U-M Health System.

An interesting aspect of the work is that it was conducted on college students. This means that the damaging effects of head injuries take effect in young adults as well. Usually, scientists think that seniors are the most likely to feel the full force of such traumas, since they are particularly vulnerable.

Students with a history of concussions exhibited changes in their balance and gait, as well as in the electrical activity patterns of their brain. Researchers found that attention and impulse control were also adversely affected.

The investigation was led by the Director of the Neurotrauma Research Laboratory, Steven Broglio, who is also a U-M assistant professor of kinesiology. In some cases, he explains, the adverse effects were present in the brain up to six years after the original injury occurred.

“The last thing we want is for people to panic. Just because you've had a concussion does not mean your brain will age more quickly or you'll get Alzheimer's. We are only proposing how being hit in the head may lead to these other conditions, but we don't know how it all goes together just yet,” he adds.

Details of the research effort appear in a paper entitled “Cognitive decline and aging: The role of concussive and subconcussive impacts,” which is published in the July issue of the scientific journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews.

Neuroscientists know that, while bumps and concussions may promote neural aging, exercising your brain through mathematics, speaking foreign languages and other similar tasks can confer a protective effect against such degeneration.

At this point, the U-M team believes that the effects of concussions and head injuries are cumulative. This means that a single blow to the head is unlikely to trigger dementia in a patient once they reach seniority. However, 40 hits to the head probably will.

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Via: Bumping Your Head Promotes Brain Aging