A Brain Concussion Can Lead To Fatigue, Depression And Lack Of Libido

A Brain Concussion Can Lead To Fatigue, Depression And Lack Of Libido.
Former NFL players who had concussions during their hurtle could be more disposed to to familiarity depression later in life, and athletes who racked up a lot of these head injuries could be at even higher risk, two additional studies contend. The findings are especially timely following a report last week that a capacity autopsy of former NFL player Junior Seau, who committed suicide last May, revealed signs of dyed in the wool traumatic encephalopathy, likely due to multiple hits to the head. The brawl - characterized by impulsivity, depression and erratic behavior - is only diagnosed after death.

The start of the two studies of retired athletes found that the more concussions that players reported suffering, the more expected they were to have depressive symptoms, most commonly fatigue and lack of sex drive. The second study, involving many of the same athletes, worn brain imaging to identify areas that could be involved with these symptoms, and found vast white matter damage among former players with depression.

The research, released on Jan 16, 2013 will be presented in March at the American Academy of Neurology convergence in San Diego. "We were very surprised to confer with that many of the athletes had high amounts of depressive symptoms," said Nyaz Didehbani, a delving psychologist at the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas and lead prime mover of the first study.

The study included 34 retired NFL players, as well as 29 fit men who did not play football. The men's average age was about 60. All the athletes had suffered at least one concussion, with four being the average. The researchers excluded athletes who showed signs of crazy reduction such as memory problems because they wanted to study depression alone.

Overall, the former players in the swot had more depressive symptoms than the other participants, and the athletes who had more symptoms had also suffered more concussions. "The life of these depressed athletes seems to be a little different than the average population that has depression". Instead of the awful and pessimistic feelings that are often associated with depression, the athletes tend to experience symptoms such as fatigue, scarcity of sex drive and sleep changes.

And "Most of the athletes did not realize that those kinds of symptoms were interdependent to depression because, I think, they associated them with the physical pain from playing professional football". The doctors who upon former football players should let them know that fatigue and sleep problems could be symptoms of depression. "One eulogistic thing is that depression is a treatable illness".

Many athletes with dejection with whom Didehbani and her colleagues have worked are benefiting from antidepressants and psychological services. However, it is not clear from the mug up whether the concussions were the cause of the depression or if other factors could be to blame.

So "It's so hard to say because the injuries were over 20 years ago". Aging and the metastasis from the NFL to a new career could also be involved in the athletes developing depression. Dr Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, said, "It wouldn't bowl over me that concussions or perspicacity trauma in general were associated with depression".

However, sly how many years and which positions the athletes in this study played, instead of just the number of concussions they keep in mind having, would give a better idea of how much head trauma they actually endured. "Asking an individual to recall how many concussions they had is notoriously unreliable".

In a other study, the Texas researchers performed advanced MRI-based imaging on the brains of 26 of the athletes. Five of the athletes had been found to have depression. Retired players who had the most depressive symptoms also had the most massive devastation to their white matter, which is the part of the brain that makes connections with the gray matter.

So "These changes contend that depression is not just psychological because athletes are not playing their sport anymore," said haunt author Dr Kyle Womack, an assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. One corpse-like matter area in particular, which lies in the mesial of the very front part of the brain, had structural changes in all of the athletes with depression. It would total sense that this area, which is involved in motivation and behavioral control and has been implicated in depression before, would be helpless to head collisions and trauma.

For her part, McKee said that identifying regions of the brain that are associated with unhappiness could help doctors detect and treat early changes in athletes. Blood and urine tests are also being developed to servant determine immediately after an injury whether a player suffered a concussion, and establish sure athletes only return to play after their brains have healed get more info. The data in these two studies are considered introductory until they have been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.