Most soccer players have undoubtedly never heard of a brain-scanning technique called "sophisticated diffusion tensor imaging." Many of them, though, are soon likely to hear about the results it has uncovered through laboratory testing of soccer players' brains.

What the imaging technology reveals in what researchers call "the first study to look at the effects of heading on the brain" is this: High-frequency headers (players who often bounce the ball off their heads to keep it in play or advance it) produce MRI scans showing abnormalities akin to patients who have suffered traumatic brain injury episodes in car accidents.

That is certainly sobering, and something that soccer officials, players and fans across the world are more accustomed to hearing from test results of athletes who participate in other "contact" sports, such as football and hockey.

The recent study -- which is receiving wide publicity, given soccer's universal appeal -- was carried out by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Study authors take pains to impart that most soccer players -- those who are younger, play the game casually and do not consistently engage in heading -- are not in danger of developing serious head injuries.

"We found the real implication for players isn't from hitting headers once in a while," says lead researcher Dr. Michael Lipton, "but repetitively, which can lead to degeneration of brain cells."

To research doctors, that means 1,000 or more headers a year, which their testing associates with abnormalities in areas of the brain that regulate memory, attention span and physical mobility.

"We can't tell an individual today not to be heading a ball, but caution is a good thing," says Lipton.

He adds: "We need more research for definitive answers."

Source: USA Today, "Heading a soccer ball 'could lead to brain damage'" Dec. 1, 2011