Risk Evaluation of Soccer Players’ Brain Injuries Induced by Repeated Head Impact

Recently, controversy about the long term effects of heading during soccer has raised awareness among the public and the medical community. The aim of this project is to understand possible injuries of brain resulted from repeated heading. The heading occurring after corner kick during soccer game is the episode investigated. Acceleration of skull induced by impact of ball will be estimated by an artificial neural network. Implementation of numerical models of head and neck will investigate influence of parameters related to muscle strength and heading technique. These biomechanical parameters include strain and strain rate inside the brain. In addition to neuropsychological assessment of clinician, objective balance assessment of gait analysis and biomarkers are utilized to investigate the effect of heading accumulation on motion control of players experiencing heading. These indexes are helpful to evaluate the risk of sustaining concussion after soccer heading. A formula will be generated to estimate the acceleration acting on the skull of soccer with heading at various locations of ball falling after corner kicking. Biomechanical parameters inside the brain can be calculated and displayed by finite element modeling of head and neck. An animal model for sport related concussion will be conducted to investigate the influences of the impact level and the repetitive frequency on the brain injury. With better understanding about influences of heading technique and frequency, a better strategy of soccer heading will be proposed to prevent from sustaining concussion of soccer players after heading. This will benefit soccer players and meet the soccer popularity will be aroused by the World Cup 2018.