Oxford and Harvard study finds no link between amateur concussions and long-term cognitive decline

A landmark study has found that there is no link between concussions suffered in amateur sport and long-term cognitive decline.

With dozens of professional and amateur rugby players launching a legal action against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union, a collaborative study between the UNSW Sydney, the University of Oxford, and Harvard University found that amateur athletes who suffered a concussion across all sports often displayed better cognitive function than those who had never been concussed.

“Our findings suggest that there is something about playing sport, even though a person may experience concussion, that may be beneficial for long-term cognitive outcomes,” Dr Matt Lennon, a researcher at the University of New South Wales, said. “While it may be that those who play sports have had access to better education and more resources, we controlled for these factors in the analysis, so that doesn’t explain the result. We hypothesise that there may be physical, social and long-term behavioural effects of sport that may make for healthier adults in late life.”

The universities surveyed more than 15,000 participants aged from 50 to 90 years old as part of an ongoing NHS-backed study into brain ageing and cognitive decline. They found those who suffered a concussion playing sport had better processing speed and attention spans than those who suffered a head injury elsewhere, for instance in a fall or car accident.

The authors of the study were keen to emphasise the limitations of their study which does not apply to professional sport where head injuries “tend to be more frequent, debilitating and severe”.

However, at a time where politicians have taken interest in rugby’s legal case on the back of the recent BBC documentary Rugby on Trial, this study emphasised the rewards that come with playing sport as well as the risks.

“This study suggests that there could be long-term benefits from sport which could outweigh any negative effects of concussions, which could have important implications for policy decisions around contact sport participation,” Professor Vanessa Raymont, a senior author from the University of Oxford, said. “It may also be that non-sports-related head injuries lead to greater brain damage than sports-related concussions.”