Football Sleep Study
Can sleep protect against the negative effects of repeated heading?
Football is one of the most popular contact sports worldwide. It has many positive effects on physical and mental health, but it also involves frequent head impacts. Some head impacts cause concussions, while many others remain subconcussive and do not lead to immediate symptoms. However, previous studies suggest that repeated subconcussive head impacts may be associated with changes in brain structure, brain function, and cognitive performance. This is particularly relevant for children and adolescents, whose brains are still developing. Between the ages of 10 and 20 years, important processes such as synaptic remodelling, myelination, and the maturation of brain networks involved in attention and higher cognition are still ongoing. This makes young athletes potentially more vulnerable to repeated head impacts, but also offers an opportunity to identify protective factors.
Sleep may be one such protective factor. Sleep is essential for brain recovery and cognitive performance, and sleep disturbances after traumatic brain injury have been linked to poorer recovery. First evidence in football suggests that longer sleep duration may reduce the negative effects of heading exposure on attention, but sleep has rarely been studied objectively in this context, especially in children and adolescents.
This study therefore investigates whether sleep duration and sleep quality can protect brain function after repetitive head impacts in youth football players. A secondary aim is to investigate how sleep changes across a football season, including differences between training days, match days, and rest days.
Further information and study registration are available on the official study website: https://www.football-sleep.com/
Research group
Group Leader: Reto Huber
Project Leader: Florent Aziri
Institutions / Partners:
- Development Pediatrics, University Children’s Hospital Zurich
- Sports Medicine, University Children’s Hospital Zurich
- Sports Doctors Network
- Alzheimer’s Foundation Switzerland
- Swiss Association of Football Players (SAFP)
- Professional Footballers Association, UK (PFA)
- Sensory-Motor Systems Lab, ETH Zurich
We are regularly looking for interns, bachelor and master students. If you are interested in our projects, feel free to contact us at florent.aziri@kispi.uzh.ch
Funding
- Ralf Loddenkemper Foundation
- ETH Foundation
- Swiss Association of Football Players
- ETS Diagnostics
- Tosoo AG