Sub-concussive repetitive head impact
The concept of ”sub-concussive repetitive head impact” has gained massive attention as it has become evident that repeated head collisions cause serious neurodegenerative pathology such as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a disease commonly found in the brain of deceased athletes whom have participated in contact-, combat-, or collision sports.
Among the ever increasing discoveries from studies in this field, two conducted at Cleveland Clinic (Marchi, et al., 2013) and Purdue University (Talavage, et al., 2014) highlight the effect that repetitive head collisions may have on the blood-brain barrier and on cognitive outcome. The Cleveland Clinic study, published in the journal PLoS One in 2013, emphasized that the blood-brain barrier becomes damaged by the accumulation of head collisions over time. The study at Purdue University concluded that a concussion can be considered the result of multiple hits, rather than just a single isolated incident.