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Children under 12 should be banned from playing football, researchers have claimed.

They say the risk of brain damage from youth football is simply too great. 

It found that former National Football League players who participated in tackle football before the age of 12 are more likely to have memory and thinking problems as adults.

The study contradicts conventional wisdom that children's more plastic brains might recover from injury better than those of adults

But a new study from BU School of Medicine researchers points to a possible increased risk of cognitive impairment from playing youth football. 

'Sports offer huge benefits to kids, as far as work ethic, leadership, and fitness, and we think kids should participate,' says study lead author Julie Stam.

'But there's increasing evidence that children respond differently to head trauma than adults. 

'Kids who are hitting their heads over and over during this important time of brain development may have consequences later in life.' 

The National Institutes of Health–funded study, published online in the January 28, 2015, edition of the journal Neurology, finds that former National Football League players who participated in tackle football before the age of 12 are more likely to have memory and thinking problems as adults. 

'For many, the love affair begins in childhood: Pop Warner Tiny-Mites start as young as age five, and many adults retain warm memories and friendships from their youth football days,' the researcher wrote. 

The study contradicts conventional wisdom that children's more plastic brains might recover from injury better than those of adults, and suggests that they may actually be more vulnerable to repeated head impacts, especially if injuries occur during a critical period of growth and development. 

'This is one study, with limitations,' adds study senior author Robert Stern, a MED professor of neurology, neurosurgery, and anatomy and neurobiology and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center's Clinical Core. 

'But the findings support the idea that it may not make sense to allow children—at a time when their brain is rapidly developing—to be exposed to repetitive hits to the head. 

'If larger studies confirm this one, we may need to consider safety changes in youth sports.' 

For this latest study, scientists examined test scores of 42 former NFL players, with an average age of 52, all of whom had experienced memory and thinking problems for at least six months. 

Half the players had played tackle football before age 12, and half had not. 

Significantly, the total number of concussions was similar between the two groups. 

Researchers found that the players exposed to tackle football before age 12 had greater impairment in mental flexibility, memory, and intelligence—a 20 percent difference in some cases. These findings held up even after statistically removing the effects of the total number of years the participants played football. Both groups scored below average on many of the tests.

Scientists examined test scores of 42 former NFL players, with an average age of 52, all of whom had experienced memory and thinking problems for at least six months.

'We were surprised by how striking the results were,' says Stamm. 'Every single test was significantly different, by a lot.'

Stamm says that the researchers were especially surprised by the scores on a reading test called the WRAT-4, which has participants read words of increasing difficulty. 

A person's score depends on the ability to pronounce the words correctly, indicating the person's familiarity with complex vocabulary. 

The low scores may be significant, she says, because they suggest that repeated head trauma at a young age might limit peak intelligence. 

She emphasizes, however, that there may be other reasons for a low score, and that more research is needed. 

'If you take just the hippocampus, that's a really important part of your brain,' he says. 

'It may be that if you hit your head a lot during this important period, you might have significant memory problems later on.'

Stern adds that a study by another group of researchers of the number and severity of hits in football players aged 9 to 12, using accelerometers in helmets, found that players received an average of 240 high-magnitude hits per season, sometimes with a force similar to that experienced by high school and college players.

Researchers say say the risk of brain damage from youth football is simply too great.

With approximately 4.8 million athletes playing youth football in the United States, the long-term consequences of brain injury represent a growing public health concern.  

'Football has the highest injury rate among team sports,' writes Christopher M. Filley, a fellow with the American Academy of Neurology, in an editorial accompanying the Neurology article.

'Given that 70 percent of all football players in the United States are under the age of 14, and every child aged 9 to 12 can be exposed to 240 head impacts during a single football season, a better understanding of how these impacts may affect children's brains is urgently needed.'

Filley's editorial cautions that the study has limitations: because the researchers could not precisely determine the players' lifetime number of head impacts, it may be the total number of hits—rather than the age of a player—that is the more critical measurement.

'Sports are important, and we want kids to participate in football,' says Stamm. 'But no eight-year-old should play a sport with his friends and end up with long-term problems.

' We just want kids to play sports more safely.'