News & Headlines

Football's governing body FIFA and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday launched a global concussion awareness initiative developed with brain health experts. The "Suspect and Protect: No Match is Worth the Risk" scheme aims to highlight the risks of traumatic brain injury and offer resources on the subject, they said in a joint statement.

Concerns about the long-term impacts of concussion and head injury have become prominent in recent years, particularly among participants and stakeholders of contact and collision sports. Many people have been left wondering about the risk of head injury in sport and whether it is safe to continue to play. People are especially worried about what is commonly known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). A 2022 publication claimed repetitive head impacts in contact and collision sports were the cause of CTE.

Now that the N.F.L. season has begun, you may have noticed football players wearing a strange sort of cover over their helmets. It’s called a Guardian Cap, and it adds a layer of foam to the outside of the helmet, with the aim of reducing brain injuries. N.F.L. players have worn the caps during summer practice for the past few years, but this is the first season the league is allowing them in games. A handful of players wore them during the opening weekend. The company behind the caps, Guardian Sports, says they reduce the force of the impact when a player’s head is hit. But what does that mean? And do they protect against concussions?

A study released Thursday found post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is on the rise among college students.  The research found PTSD increased 4.1 percentage points over five years, going from 3.4 percent of students in the 2017-18 school year to 7.5 percent in the 2021-22 academic year.  The analysis conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggested possible stressors that could have triggered PTSD in students, such as losing loved ones during the pandemic, campus shootings and racial trauma.  

A single mild concussion while playing amateur sports does not lead to long-term cognitive decline a recent study has found. This conclusion may seem at odds with much research on head injury and concussion in sport. However, a closer look at the study shows its findings are not so different after all: experiencing repeated concussions is not a good thing.

A recent study found that despite a rise in mental health disorders among first responders, only 13% of front-line health care workers say they've received behavioral health services.

One of Australia's most decorated and longest serving military commanders has revealed he will donate his brain to research, as the Australian Defence Force grapples with the impact of blast exposure on soldiers' cognitive health. In the past two weeks, more than 200 current and former service personnel have pledged their brains to the Australian Veterans Brain Bank (AVBB), after the ABC reported growing evidence of a link between mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) associated with blast exposure and poor mental health and suicide.

Researchers in Michigan State University's Department of Kinesiology found significant geographic variations in concussion diagnoses in United States emergency departments—with the highest rates in the South and lower rates in the Midwest and Northeast.

Study reveals that impaired brain clearance, indicated by larger perivascular space volume, may be the missing link between repetitive head impacts and cognitive decline in former American football players.

The Warrior Games have become a symbol of the military’s changing perceptions about who is fit to serve. Some of the athletes make it to the Paralympics, which start this week in Paris.

The U.S. FDA is ramping up its investigation of the clinical trials that tested an MDMA-based therapy, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Food and Drug Administration investigators this week interviewed four people about the clinical trials sponsored by Lykos Therapeutics, the report said.

Proponents of psychedelic medicine had a setback this month. The federal Food and Drug Administration declined to approve a combination of talk therapy and MDMA, also known as ecstasy and “Molly,” as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The application had been hailed as a potential milestone in the treatment of PTSD — and the broader field of psychedelic medicine. But the FDA said it needed more research.