Concussion-related brain disease found in living athletes, study finds

Source: Toronto Star

A new study has offered the first evidence CTE, a concussion-related brain disease, can be identified in living athletes, a discovery experts say could shake up the way professional sports treats concussions and head trauma in players.

Currently, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is diagnosed only after death, using an autopsy. The new findings are a step toward identifying the disease while players are still alive. “It suggests we’re on the right track,” UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small, an Alzheimer’s specialist and lead author on the study, said in an interview.

“We have an approach or a strategy to detect the problem early so we can develop treatments before there’s extensive damage.”

In the study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, UCLA researchers injected a biomarker into five retired NFL players ages 45 to 73 with a history of CTE symptoms, as well as a control group of healthy adults. They then ran all the participants through a brain scan to look for tau proteins, an indicator of CTE, locating significant amounts in the retired players’ brains.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/1318488--concussion-related-brain-disease-found-in-living-athletes-study-finds