Study on how sports impact brain health expands, seeks non-athletes

The College Level Aging Athlete Study is underway, as researchers aim to understand how college sports can impact brain health later in life.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The College Level Aging Athlete Study is underway, as researchers aim to understand how college sports can impact brain health later in life.

CLEAATS has already surpassed its original goal to survey 500 former college athletes, in both contact and non-contact sports.

UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute is conducting the study, focusing on former college athletes over the age of 50, who didn’t go on to play professional sports.

Dr. Jeff Schafert is a professor at UT Southwestern and a co-principal investigator of CLEAATS.

"We’re not just focusing on former football players but all sports,” he said. “Both men and women."

Thus far, CLEAATS has surveyed 634 participants.

"We have about a 55% to 45% male to female split,” Dr. Schafert said. “So, we're actually getting quite a lot of female athletes."

Back in 2022, the Darrell K Royal Research Fund provided a half-million-dollar grant to support this study.

Now, CLEAATS is now in need of non-athletes over the age of 50, to serve as the control group for this study.

"We answer the exact same questions that the athletes answer,” DKR Research Fund president Debbie Hanna said. “We're measured in the exact same way and we're baselined the same way."

Some early takeaways from the study show that a fourth of the former female athletes surveyed expressed some level of concern about later-in-life cognitive issues and CTE — a brain disorder that can come from repeated head injuries.

Early data also indicates that a majority of participants have reported good cognitive and mental health at this time.

"This is important information for athletes themselves as they age,” Hanna said. “Along with men and women deciding if they're going to let their kids participate in sports."

CLEAATS is a longitudinal study, meaning researchers such Dr. Schafert will likely be looking at this data over the next few years.

"We're really going to need to add more and more participants,” he concluded. “To really try and understand these complex relationships."

The study involves a 30-minute online survey, followed up by a brief phone call.

Those who participate in the study will be compensated $50.

To enroll in the study, you can click this link.