A new study out of London has found that retired professional soccer players show notable differences in brain structure and elevated rates of mental health struggles — but their memory and thinking skills remain intact, at least for now.
Researchers at Imperial College London examined 142 former British professional players between the ages of 30 and 60, comparing them to 56 similarly aged individuals who had no history of contact sports, military service, or prior concussions.
To assess brain health, the research team used questionnaires and cognitive tests, along with structural MRI brain scans from 124 of the former players and 40 people in the comparison group, looking specifically at differences in grey matter volume across brain regions.
The study was presented Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. Its authors described the work as part of a growing scientific movement to treat repeated head impacts as a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia — similar to the way doctors already approach high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
The plan is for this to become a long-term project, with researchers intending to check in on participants every two years going forward.
“The field is taking a more holistic view of brain health and dementia risk,” said senior author Thomas Parker, a consultant neurologist at Imperial College London.
When it came to memory and thinking tests, the former players performed about as well as the control group after researchers accounted for variables like age and education level — showing no significant cognitive differences.
However, mental health was a different story. About 31% of the former athletes met the threshold for clinical depression, compared to just 9% in the control group. Similarly, 42% of the players reported clinical anxiety, versus 25% of the comparison group.
Brain scans also revealed that, as a whole, the former players had less tissue in areas of the brain associated with memory and emotion. Still, only 2% of the athletes showed individual signs of severe brain shrinkage that would suggest active, progressive neurodegeneration.
It’s important to note that the study has not yet been peer-reviewed. Researchers plan to submit a paper later this year that will include a larger sample size and more detailed analysis.
The study did not establish a direct connection to Alzheimer’s disease, the progressive condition that gradually erodes memory and is the leading cause of dementia.
Much of the existing research into sports-related brain damage has relied on post-mortem examinations and historical medical records to study chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE — a degenerative disease tied to repeated head trauma that can only be confirmed after death.
By following athletes during mid-life, the Imperial College team hopes to track neurological changes well before dementia would typically be expected to appear.
These results are consistent with the team’s earlier peer-reviewed findings from 2025, which examined 200 retired rugby players and found similar reductions in grey matter and higher anxiety levels, alongside normal cognitive function.
Researchers were careful to emphasize that the current findings cannot be used to predict any individual’s personal risk of developing dementia.
“We’re at a very early stage of translating these findings to individual risk prediction,” Parker said.
