--- 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: 2026-02-22T07:15:07.521Z 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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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? 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=b5fd65f2-4dc4-4718-a54e-3f9128f348fc&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1)  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 18, 2015 3:00 PM UTC  Brain Injury Brain Injury Science Picture Co—Getty Images/Collection Mix: Subjects RM  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. ```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":"2026-02-22T07:15:07.521Z","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"}}]}] ```