--- title: Concussions and the NFL: Retired Players Still Have Memory Problems description: A study shows that a concussion during their playing years may have lasting effects on NFL players’ memory years later canonical: https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-18T15:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:07:59.953Z article:section: Health og:title: How Concussions Continue to Plague Retired NFL Players og:description: A study shows that a concussion during their playing years may have lasting effects on NFL players’ memory years later og:url: https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8aff6d3c1076a07b/6987f30b06f2c1b6c83388ef/480792441.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4385 og:image:height: 2467 og:image:alt: 480792441 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Concussions Continue to Plague Retired NFL Players twitter:description: A study shows that a concussion during their playing years may have lasting effects on NFL players’ memory years later twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8aff6d3c1076a07b/6987f30b06f2c1b6c83388ef/480792441.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Concussions Continue to Plague Retired NFL Players > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=7b348127-736e-40a8-b653-26d386a6e067&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players [Watch (HLS stream): The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aHlzfYUV.m3u8) (3:33)  _Published 2014-10-06. The man who helped win free agency for NFL and NBA players is seeking the same for college athletes_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 18, 2015 3:00 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 18, 2015 3:00 PM UTC While there may be more questions than answers about how best to protect football players from the effects of concussions, there’s more data suggesting that the negative effects of head injuries can be long lasting. In the latest report, one of the first to combine both anatomical screening of the brain with performance on standard memory and cognitive tests, researchers found that retired NFL players who suffered a concussion may continue to experience cognitive deficits many years later. Munro Cullum, a professor of psychiatry and neurology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and his colleagues [report in _JAMA Neurology_](http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamaneurol.2015.0206) that having a concussion, and in particular losing consciousness after a concussion, can have long-lasting effects on the brain. The team studied 28 former NFL players, all of whom had a history of concussion, who were compared to 21 matched volunteers who did not have a history of concussion. Eight of the retired players were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which meant they had some deficits in memory but weren’t prevented from living their daily lives by these changes, and they were compared to six participants with MCI who did not have a history of concussion. **MORE:** [How Concussions Can Lead to Poor Grades](http://time.com/3852458/how-concussions-affect-school-grades/) Overall, the retired players performed worse on average on standard tests of memory than health controls, suggesting that their history of concussion affected their memory skills in some way. This was supported by imaging data of the hippocampus, the region in the brain responsible for coordinating memory. On average, the athletes showed smaller hippocampal volumes than the controls. (The scientists did not, however, collect data on the player’s hippocampal volume before the concussion, although the comparison to the non-athletes suggests that the concussions may have influenced shrinkage in this region.) The volumes of retired players who were knocked unconscious after a concussion were even smaller than those of healthy controls, and the same was true for the athletes with MCI when compared to non-athletes with MCI. “We know that normal aging itself is associated with some declines in both hippocampal volume as well as memory function,” says Cullum, “but it seems that those declines are accentuated when there is a concussion, and when there is a concussion with loss of consciousness.” **MORE:** [Judge OKs 65-Year Deal Over NFL Concussions That Could Cost $1B](http://time.com/3831859/nfl-concussion-lawsuit-deal/) The findings don’t address another big question in the field, which is how best to treat people who have had a concussion. The data is conflicting on how much rest following a head injury is ideal; most experts recommend a day or two and then gradual return to normal activities, with a break if symptoms like headaches and dizziness return. While Cullum says that most patients with concussions recover completely within weeks of the injury, football players may be at increased risk of longer lasting cognitive deficits because of their repeated exposure to the danger. And that risk increases if they lose consciousness following a concussion. Documenting concussions and any blacking out afterward is critical for helping future physicians to manage the care of someone with such head injuries, he says. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Right now, the NCAA rules prohibit the schools from doing anything to compensate the athletes for generating the hundreds of millions of dollars that they help generate for basketball and football and. In the United States. Traditionally there was a social contract between student athletes, the schools and the NCAA. Where talented student athletes would get scholarships but forego any compensation for their participation in athletics because primarily they were student athletes. The reality is that the athletes who play for a big Division I team are required to spend 60, 70 hours a week devoted to generating new revenues which they generate. When you talk about being paid, and what type of payment. Straight payment on salary basis, and then the question is who gets compensated. Is it the revenue generating sports or the non- revenue generating sports as well. If there will be some compensation for student athletes, here are the ways that. could happen. One would be a straight pay for play. Pay for play essentially means that you get student athletes on your campus no longer other students per se, but they are employees and you're paying them a salary to participate for the school. The problems are several fold, as an employee, potentially they could be terminated at any time. That concept, destroys the model and relationship between sports and, and education. Another way would be some sort of revenue sharing. It's only fair if the NCAA and. And the video game makers are able to really capitalize from exploiting a particular player or a group of player's likenesses, that those players should share in some way, shape or form in that largesse. To be able to maybe take monies and place it in trust. And it can be accessed by student athletes who graduate. And of course they can keep the scholarship system as it is. With no other major changes. What they're getting is the cost of a prime education for free, and they're getting an opportunity to train themselves for a career after sports and college. [ MUSIC ] I believe what has been advocated, was simply to say, players should have the right. To negotiation their own kinds of agreements and let the market decide their relative value. It's the same rules that apply to every business in this country. Free competition and markets decide the best solutions. When we introduce competition. Into professional sports for players. What happened? The product got better. Competition got more exciting. All too often now I go to camps and I speak to young people and, you know, their mantra is, I've got to get paid, and you have to be careful with that. The words free market. Cartel, those things are buzz words aimed at generating some sort of emotional response but when you really take a look at their application to college sports ultimately your looking at factors that could destroy college sports as we know it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/"},"headline":"Concussions Continue to Plague Retired NFL Players","datePublished":"2015-05-18T15:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T09:07:59.953Z","description":"A study shows that a concussion during their playing years may have lasting effects on NFL players’ memory years later","url":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/","keywords":["Brain","medicine","concussions"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8aff6d3c1076a07b/6987f30b06f2c1b6c83388ef/480792441.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8aff6d3c1076a07b/6987f30b06f2c1b6c83388ef/480792441.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"480792441","caption":"480792441","creditText":"Science Picture Co—Getty Images/Collection Mix: Subjects RM","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/brain/","name":"Brain"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/","name":"Concussions Continue to Plague Retired NFL Players"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players","description":"The man who helped win free agency for NFL and NBA players is seeking the same for college athletes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aHlzfYUV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-06T16:37:37.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aHlzfYUV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/","duration":"PT3M33S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3863914/concussions-memory-retired-nfl-players/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```