NCT04903015

Cerebral and Cognitive Impact of Professional Soccer Practice

Cerebral and Cognitive Modifications in Retired Professional Soccer Players as Compared to Non Exposed to Repeated Cranial Impacts Sportsmen : Transverse Analytic Study

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 80 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University Hospital, Strasbourg, France · Academic / Other
• Sex: Male
• Age: 32 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The objective of this study is to evaluate, using MRI, the microstructural consequences and the onset of any cognitive impairment in professional soccer players at the end of their career, who have experienced repeated minor head injuries. Over the long term, these head injuries could lead to morphological lesions and have an impact on soccer players' cognitive skills. The main evaluation criterion corresponds to the modifications found on MRI in the professional soccer player group (diffusion tensor, cerebral perfusion, fMRI, cerebral volumetry and cortical thickness, spectroscopy, susceptibility imaging). This is an exposure/nonexposure study assessing the onset of MRI abnormalities (diffusion tensor, cerebral perfusion, fMRI, volumetry and cortical thickness, spectroscopy, susceptibility imaging) in professional soccer players exposed to repeated mild head injuries, who are either at the end of their career or retired for approximately 10 years, compared to high-level athletes not exposed to head injuries.

Conditions

• Traumatic Chronic Encephalopathy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DIAGNOSTIC_TEST	MRI	The following sequences of the MRI will be acquired during the inclusion visit: * 3D T1 gradient echo (GRE): anatomy; registration; cerebral, white matter, and grey matter volumetry; and cortical thickness; * multiecho 3D T2 GRE: quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), iron overload quantification; * continuous arterial spin labeling (ASL) 3D: cerebral perfusion; * resting-state fMRI: functional connectivity; * 64-direction DTI (b=1000 and 2500): alterations in white matter and its microstructure, anatomic connectivity; * monovoxel spectroscopy of the mesencephalus with short echo time (TE).

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-01-07
• Primary completion: 2026-02-07
• Completion: 2026-02-07
• First posted: 2021-05-26
• Last updated: 2025-08-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: France