Not only football players. And not just professional athletes. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, is a syndrome caused by repeated concussions.shake in English), strikes already at a young age. This was found in the largest ever study of neurodegenerative diseases in young adults, published in the journal Jama Neurology.
Symptoms
The disease may be formal Diagnosis only at autopsyand symptoms range from attention deficit AND cognitive decline V memory loss from depression with a penchant for suicide Allpersonality change from confusion AND speech difficulties Vaggression up to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Unlike previous studies that examined chronic traumatic encephalopathy predominantly among professional football players, this study the majority of participating athletes (71.4%) were amateuranti and they played at the amateur level in high school or varsity teams. Most of the donors in this study played American football (60%), 15% played football10% a hockey. Other donors who were post-mortem diagnosed with CTE practiced struggle amateur and professional and rugby. The credit for bringing the syndrome to the world goes to the 2016 exposé film Shady Areas with Will Smith, which told the true story of neurologist Bennett Omalu, who tried his best to bring KTR to the attention of the public.
40% of the brains studied already had CTE signals.
Researchers at Boston University’s CTE Center found more than 60 cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes under 30 years of age at the time of their death. Scientists have detailed the characteristics 152 brains donated at the UNITE Brain Bank, the largest tissue repository in the world, from February 1, 2008 to September 31, 2022. An alarming figure emerged: 63 out of 152 donated brains, or just over 40% already had signs of mild stage 1 or 2 CTE.. Only three athletes were diagnosed with stage 3 CTE: one was a former National Football League (NFL) player, another played college football, and a third played professional rugby.
American football, ice hockey and soccer data.
The data proves once again that this American football is the sport most at risk, due to the numerous blows to the head suffered by athletes. In particular, out of 152 donors, 92 (60.5%) played American football as their main sport. Of these 92, 48 were diagnosed with CTE. Of the 12 donors who played football professionally, 11 had a CTE and all played in the NFL. An additional 37 CTE donors played college football amateurly as a major sport: 21 attended college and 16 never played football after high school. The position played in American football did not influence the development of CTE, but those who played longer were more likely to be diagnosed with the disease: On average, those who had CTE played football 2.8 years longer than those who did not develop encephalopathy. The study also included 16 ice hockey donors, six of whom had CTE (one of them played in the National Hockey League in the second round). Four out of 23 football players had CTE..
Women
Only 11 of 152 brain donors were women: one of them, a 28-year-old college football player, was diagnosed with CTE. Earlier this year, Australian scientists diagnosed the world’s first case of CTE in professional athlete Heather Anderson, a 28-year-old Australian Football League player. committed suicide. The athlete has been involved in this sport since the age of 5. An autopsy performed by scientists at the Australian Sports Brain Bank revealed mild CTE.
Age of athletes with encephalopathy: the youngest is 17 years old
Age of donors at deathand ranged from 13 to 29 years. The youngest person diagnosed with CTE was 17 year old boy playing American football. The most common cause of death for donors, whether or not they had encephalopathy, was suicidefollowed by overdose.
Early onset of the disease
“This study clearly shows that the pathology of CTE begins early,” she said. Ann McKee, study co-author and director of the CTE Center at Boston University. “Remarkably, more than 40% of young contact sports athletes in the UNITE brain bank suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” The scientist also noted that studies of the brain banks of the general population show that less than 1% of the population suffers from CTE. However, in this case, they focused on contact sports athletes.
Brain donors who died before the age of 30 were selected to minimize any “contamination” from age-related diseases. In fact, age-related neurodegenerative changes occur in people with age: studying the young brain has given scientists the opportunity to observe chronic traumatic encephalopathy without other comorbidities.
Shocking numbers from studies of professional American football players
“It is now fairly well known that CTE is a danger to elite athletes, especially soccer players,” McKee said. “However, our study shows that CTE may occur in very young athletes who only play contact sports at the amateur level.” In a study published earlier this year, Boston University’s CTE Center found that nearly 92 percent of 376 former NFL players tested had been diagnosed with CTE. Another study last June examined the brains of 631 former NFL players and found that 451 (71%) had CTEs.
frontal lobe injury
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is most often diagnosed in people who have suffered repeated blows to the head. The disease is characterized by widespread deposition in the brain of an abnormal form tau proteintypical of some dementias. In this study, just published in Jama, the greatest damage was observed in frontal lobe. “The frontal lobe plays a key role in judgment and attention, as well as in planning and performing actions. It can also play a role in impulsivity,” McKee said. Scientists have also observed brain atrophy.
What happens to children
There is no proofat the moment it is exposure to blows to the head at a young age increases the risk of developing CTE.. “If someone between the ages of 8 and 18 receives 5,000 blows to the head while playing football, they are at the same risk as a person between the ages of 14 and 24,” he explained. Julie Stamm, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was interviewed by Cnn. However, when a child starts playing, especially football, from an early age and continues into adolescence and adulthood, risk develop a diseaseto increase. TOcumulative impact Repetitive traumatic brain injury during a lifetime is the biggest risk factor for developing CTE,” says Stemm. According to the data, the risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy doubles every 2.6 years.