UEA looking for female footballers for dementia study
Researchers are concerned women could face greater risks due to a lack of research.
The university is running a project, led by Dr Michael Grey, to monitor ex-footballers for early signs of dementia potentially caused by heading the ball.
So far, 35 former professional players have signed up including Norwich City's Iwan Roberts and Jeremy Goss, and Crystal Palace's Mark Bright.
It's after the University of Glasgow found retired male players are around five times more likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease than the average person.
The UEA is trying to find out more about when players start to show early signs of cognitive decline, and are now urgently looking for amateur and professional female players to take part too.
Dr Grey, from UEA's School of Health Sciences, said: "We know that there is greater risk of dementia in former professional footballers, and we think this is related to repetitive heading of the ball.
"We know very little about how this affects female players, but we think female players are at even greater risk of developing sport-related dementia than male players.
"We know there are physical and physiological differences between male and female players and this could be important when it comes to the impact of repeatedly heading the ball.
"But we don’t fully understand the impact these differences could have, so we are encouraging former amateur and professional female players to come forward to help us with our project."
Researchers will use cutting-edge technology to test for early signs of deteriorating brain health, which can take place in the comfort of the participant's home, with the exception of a small group visiting the lab.
They are looking for former amateur and professional footballers, both male and female over the age of 40, to take part in the study.
Anyone interested is asked to visit the SCORES Project website.