Dr. Gary Steinberg

studying concussions and trying to figure out better ways to diagnose them, prevent the sequela for football players, including changes in equipment and in tackling and that kind of thing.

But concussion is, we've learned a lot since the 1990s.

At that time,

Concussion was not known, even repeated concussion, to cause CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, in football players.

CTE, which became a hot topic, was known only in boxers.

So I became very well informed at the time about concussions, and there was surprisingly little known

soccer players had a high incidence of concussion at that time.

It wasn't known if there were long-term sequela.

And usually there are not long-term sequela as long as you don't get repeated concussions.

So now what we generally recommend if someone has a concussion, we usually get an MR scan if it's severe.

MR scans usually don't show anything.

They would show a contusion if there's any bruising of the brain, but they don't show the molecular abnormalities that occur with a concussion.

So the best way to figure out how severe it is and when a person has recovered

is to do more sophisticated neurologic testing.

Eye tracking is a very sensitive way to detect problems with the brain after a concussion because you won't track as well.

And in fact, many sports, football, hockey, are incorporating pre-season eye tracking testing.

To get a baseline.

To get a baseline.

Of course, some of the players will game the system because they still don't want to be taken out.

So they may try to perform not as well as they could.