The Influence of Heading and Gender on Intraindividual Variability in Neuropsychological Test Performance in College Soccer Players

The goal of this study was to determine if repetitive exposure to heading the ball in soccer led to increased neurocognitive dispersion across several neuropsychological tests in college soccer athletes. Gender was analyzed to determine if male and female athletes experienced different levels of dispersion following repetitive heading events. In this study, 50 soccer athletes (25 = female) were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests and completed a questionnaire (HeadCount-2w) assessing soccer activity over a two-week period, including recent heading exposure. Scores on neuropsychological tests were converted to Standard scores and an intraindividual standard deviation (ISD) score was calculated for each individual to determine neurocognitive dispersion spanning across twelve tests. No significant relationship was found across ISD scores between low and high heading groups or male and female athletes. However, both comparisons exhibited medium effect sizes when considering the number of impaired scores, pointing to the potential use of this metric in future studies as a measure of neuropsychological performance following repetitive heading events