Mental performance of ball sport athletes

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: Recruiting

Sex: Male

Target Recruitment: 68

Inclusion Criteria

Male competitive soccer, field hockey or volleyball players (professional or semi-professional) practicing their sport at least 10 hours per week for at least two years are included in the study. Due to the MRI examination, the athletes should be right-handed for better comparability. Very good German language skills are also required for the psychometric testing. The age of the control participants (fieldhockey and vollyball players) should be comparable to that of the soccer players.

Exclusion Criteria

Goalkeepers will be excluded from the study due to the infrequent headers performed. Athletes who have ever suffered a skull injury with impaired consciousness (concussion, commotio) will be excluded from participation in the study. The same applies to players who have ever been excluded from training or competition due to an injury to the head, neck or cervical vertebrae (time-loss injury), as well as players who regularly participate in other risk sports (in relation to impacts against the head) or contact sports. In addition, any traumatic brain injury (even mild) in the past three months is excluded, as well as any relevant traumatic brain injury (i.e., other than concussion) outside the main sport (soccer/field hockey/volleyball).
The following procedures, diseases and injuries also lead to exclusion from the study: cranial surgery, neurological diseases (e.g. epilepsy, cerebral ischemia, hemorrhage), relevant mental disorders (e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder), harmful alcohol use or drug abuse according to DSM-V, as well as recent injuries (e.g. fractures). In addition, there must be no exclusion criteria for participation in an MRI study (e.g., metal or other implants in the body).

Study & Design

Study Type: observational

Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
-MRI: structural (T1, FLAIR, T2), diffusion and functional acquisitions.<br>-Symptom questionnaire regarding typical head and neck injuries (Jordan, Green, Galanty, Mandelbaum, & Jabour, 1996).<br>-Heading questionnaire (Einstein Heading Ques-tionnaire; Lipton et al., 2013).<br>-Neck strength (Citec HDD Dynamometer CT3002/30; CIT Technics, Netherlands).

Secondary Outcome Measures