According to a new study, soccer players who head the ball more than 1,300 times per year may have slight forms of brain damage.

The study compared brain scans of those who have been playing soccer for many years.The players who reported heading the ball more frequently processed information slower than those who headed the ball less and had impaired memory.

“I definitely feel like I can’t remember things as well as I could before [playing soccer],” junior Connie Tran said

Typically the frontal lobe is damaged from this repeated action. The frontal lobe is responsible for attention, planning, judgement, and personality. While the impact is typically not severe enough to cause major changes, slight alterations in how the brain operates can be detected.

The scans were done by the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which is similar to magnetic resonance imaging. The machine scanned for the movement of water molecules. The scans of the players who head the ball less often showed the water molecules moving in unison, while the water molecules in unhealthy brains moved more did not move together.

“I don’t think [the study] is true because I’ve been playing soccer since I was four and haven’t noticed anything,” junior Kurtis Neal said.

In high school sports across the nation, football generates the most amount of concussions, but just after that is girls’ soccer. Boys’ soccer falls fifth on the list just after boys’ and girls’ lacrosse.

“Sometimes I feel really dizzy, and I probably have gotten concussions, but haven’t treated it,” sophomore Michelle Burnett said.

If you are ever hit in the head while playing a sport and experience headaches, blurred vision, confusion, or a number of other symptoms it is best to get it checked out by an athletic trainer or doctor as soon as possible.