PROJECT AT A GLANCE

COLLISION COURSE

MORE THAN 20 RETIRED CFL players participated in a research collaboration between The Spectator and experts from McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Healthcare.

The groundbreaking project, which spanned more than two years, used sophisticated brain scanning techniques to look at the long-term impacts of concussions and repeated hits to the head on retired CFL players.

The results obtained are disturbing. Compared to healthy control subjects of similar ages, the retired players showed: Widespread thinning of the cerebral cortex, where billions and billions of the brain’s nerve cell bodies are located; Significant areas of differences in the bundles of nerve fibres that connect various parts of the brain; Sharply lower levels of electrical activity in the brain from EEG recordings; A 10-fold increase of memory-related symptoms and a four-times increase in depression symptoms.

OUR SCIENTIFIC TEAM

Dr. Michael Noseworthy

Director of McMaster’s School of Biomedical Engineering, and director of Imaging Physics and Engineering at the Imaging Research Centre, St. Joseph’s Healthcare. He’s also an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, radiology and medical physics and applied radiation sciences. He is an expert in the field of functional MRI imaging. Dr. John Connolly McMaster professor and the Senator William McMaster Chair in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language. He is the director of the new Centre for Advanced Research in Experimental and Applied Linguistics, and co-directs the Language, Memory and Brain Laboratories. He is an expert in the field of EEG analysis. Dr. Luciano Minuzzi Professor in McMaster’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences and a member of McMaster’s Mood Disorders Program based at St. Joseph’s Healthcare’s West 5th Campus. He is also a psychiatrist and an expert in the analysis of functional MRI imaging. Kyle Ruiter and Rober Boshra PhD candidates working under the supervision of Dr. John Connolly, with expertise in EEG analysis. Mitch Doughty A master’s candidate in biomedical engineering, working under the supervision of Dr. Michael Noseworthy, with expertise in MRI imaging.