Such DTI-MRI results may provide a starting point for the development of ways to prevent more serious injury, according to the group led by Eva Catenaccio, a fourth-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The researchers matched more than three dozen men and women from an ongoing longitudinal study of mild traumatic brain injury in amateur soccer players -- a group prone to repetitive subconcussive impacts by heading the ball.
The subjects were imaged on a 3-tesla MRI scanner, and the researchers assessed baseline gender differences in fractional anisotropy, heading-related declines in fractional anisotropy, and whether either gender's results were more sensitive to heading.
They found regions showing statistically significant effects from all three factors in the bilateral corona radiata and right frontal lobe white matter. More specifically, women had lower baseline fractional anisotropy, both genders showed heading-related declines in fractional anisotropy, and there was a difference between the genders in sensitivity to heading-related changes in fractional anisotropy.
"These findings highlight the importance of including equal numbers of women and men in research studies and examining the unique contributions of biological sex to outcomes, both in mild traumatic brain injury and in other forms of brain injury and disease," Catenaccio wrote in an email to AuntMinnie.com. "Additionally, in the future, results like these may be used to develop different sex-specific guidelines for exposure to repetitive mild traumatic brain injury in athletes."
Catenaccio and colleagues plan to include larger sample sizes and longitudinal follow-up in future research.
"Additionally, it will be important to investigate the contributions of the sex steroid hormones (estrogen and progesterone) to outcomes in women," she said.
