Like all contact sports, boxing and rugby are known to cause concussions. According to a recent study on the latter, the brain volume of professional gamers may even experience changes.

Rugby is one of the most dangerous sports, the professional sportsmen of this practice are brought to receive blows and to get up, sometimes without worrying about the importance of the shock and this, in training or / and during the matches. . Despite the reassuring presence of medical staff around the pitch, rugby is likely to lead to changes in the brain structure. This is confirmed by a recent study published in the journal Brain Communications and conducted by University College London, which followed 44 professionals between July 2017 and September 2019. The latter had suffered a head injury during this period.

Among the athletes monitored, 41 men and three women underwent a battery of tests, namely MRIs, and almost half of them underwent a second scan a year later. Comparing their brain scans with other athletes unrelated to contact sports, the results show that 23% of rugby players, whether or not they had received blows to the head, were exposed to injuries. abnormalities in the white matter (nerve cells and blood vessels), even causing microhemorrhages.

James Drake, on the initiative of the foundation which financed this study, deplores that “Common sense dictates that the number and ferocity of impacts, both in training and in matches, must be dramatically reduced. Since rugby became more professional in the 1990s, the game has changed beyond all knowledge. The players today are stronger and more powerful overall. We must therefore be aware of all the consequences that the multiplication of impacts will have on their organism ”.

The consequences of these commotions land in the political sphere. In a report published on Thursday, parliamentarians want to impose on the British government a standard protocol to reduce and minimize the risk of brain damage in top athletes.

In December 2020, former professional players demanded compensation from the British and Welsh rugby federations. According to athletes, the many shocks they have suffered during their careers are at the origin of the disorders that weaken them today.