Sports-related concussions (SRC) may not be linked to long-term cognitive problems for non-professional players, according to a study on Wednesday.

The research, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (JNNP), showed that people who reported having any SRC in their lives performed marginally better cognitively than those with no concussion history.

In fact, participants who had sustained SRC actually performed better cognitively in some domains than those who had never had a concussion, suggesting that sports activity may have preventive effects.

Led by researchers from the University of New South Wales, Australia, an international team from the US, and the UK analysed data from over 15,000 participants aged 50 to 90. The research aimed to comprehend cognitive decline and ageing of the brain.

“We hypothesise that there may be physical, social, and long-term behavioural effects of sports that may make for healthier adults in late life,” said lead author Dr. Matt Lennon, from UNSW’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA).

While people with one SRC had better working memory and reasoning capacity, participants with three or more SRCs had worse processing speed and attention. They also had a declining trajectory of verbal reasoning with age.

The study suggests that there could be long-term benefits from sport that could outweigh any negative effects of concussions, which could have important implications for policy decisions around contact sport participation.

“While these results do not indicate the safety of any sport in particular, they do indicate that overall sports may have greater beneficial effects for long-term cognitive health than the damage it causes, even in those who have experienced concussion. This finding should not be overstated, the beneficial effects were small and in people who had two or more sports-related concussions there was no longer any benefit to concussion. Additionally, this study does not apply to concussions in professional athletes, whose head injuries tend to be more frequent, debilitating and severe,” noted Lennon.

However, the study acknowledged some limitations, including the retrospective design of the study and the lack of inclusion of professional athletes, who face the concussion problem daily.