by Cristina Brown
Largest Study Ever Conducted Of Brains Donated From Young Athletes Shows Early Signs Of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Are Present In Amateur Football, Soccer And Ice Hockey Players
Not just football players. And not just professional athletes. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, a syndrome caused by repeated concussions, strikes at a young age. This was revealed by the largest study ever conducted so far on the neurodegenerative disease in young people published in Jama Neurology.
Symptoms
The disease can only be formally diagnosed with an autopsy and symptoms range from attention deficit and reduced cognitive performance to memory loss, suicidal depression, personality changes, confusion and slurred speech, aggression, to dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Unlike previous studies that examined chronic traumatic encephalopathy primarily among professional football players, in this study the majority of athletes involved (71.4%) were amateurs and played amateur teams on high school or of the Universities. The majority of donors in this study played American football (60%), 15% played soccer, 10% ice hockey. Other donors who received the postmortem diagnosis of CTE played amateur and professional wrestling and rugby. The merit of having brought the world aware of the syndrome belongs to the 2016 denunciation film «Zone d’ombra» with Will Smith, which told the true story of the neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, who tried in every way to bring to public attention the CTE.
40% of the brains examined already had CTE signals
The researchers of the CTE Center of Boston University discovered more than 60 cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes who were younger than 30 at the time of their deaths. In detail, the scientists described the characteristics of 152 brains donated to the UNITE brain bank, the largest tissue repository in the world, between February 1, 2008 and September 31, 2022. A disturbing figure emerged: 63 of the 152 donated brains, or just over 40%, already had signs of mild CTE, either stage 1 or stage 2. Only three athletes were diagnosed with stage 3 CTE: one was a former National Football League (NFL) player, another he played football with the University team and the third practiced professional rugby.
The data for American football, ice hockey and soccer
The data proves once again that American football is the sport most at risk, due to the numerous blows to the head that athletes suffer. Specifically, of the 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 professional football, 11 had CTE and all had played in the NFL. An additional 37 donors with CTEs played American football amateurly as their major sport, 21 in college and 16 never played after high school. The position played in American football made no difference in 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 for 2.8 years longer than those who did not develop encephalopathy. Also involved in the study were 16 ice hockey donors, six with CTE (one of them, in Phase 2, was playing in the National Hockey League). Four of the 23 athletes playing soccer had CTE.
gives it
Only 11 of the 152 brain donors were women: one of them, a 28-year-old college football player, diagnosed with CTE. Just earlier this year Australian scientists have diagnosed the world’s first case of CTE in a professional athlete, Heather Anderson, a 28-year-old Australian Football League player who died by suicide. She the athlete practiced this sport from the age of 5. An autopsy conducted by Australian Sports Brain Bank scientists diagnosed mild CTE.
The age of the athletes with encephalopathy: the youngest was 17 years old
The age of the donors at the time of death ranged from 13 to 29 years. The youngest person diagnosed with CTE was a 17-year-old boy who played American football. The most common cause of donor death, whether or not they had encephalopathy, was suicide, followed by overdose.
The early onset of the disease
“This study clearly shows that the pathology of CTE starts early,” said Dr. Ann McKee, study co-author and director of the CTE Center at Boston University. “It is remarkable that over 40% of young contact sports athletes in the UNITE brain bank have chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” The scientist also pointed out that brain bank studies of the general population show that less than 1% of the general population has CTE. In this case, however, they focused on contact sports athletes.
Brain donors who died before reaching the age of 30 were selected to minimize any “pollution” from age-related conditions. In fact, as people age, age-related neurodegenerative changes occur: studying younger brains has given scientists the opportunity to observe chronic traumatic encephalopathy without other comorbid conditions.
The shocking numbers of studies on professional American football players
“It is now fairly recognized that CTE poses a risk to elite elite athletes, especially football players,” McKee said. “However, our study demonstrates that CTE can occur in very young athletes who only play contact sports at an amateur level.” In a study published earlier this year, the Boston University CTE Center found that nearly 92 percent of the 376 former NFL players studied had been diagnosed with CTE. A other study last June examined 631 brains of former NFL players and found that 451 (71%) had CTE.
Damage to the frontal lobe
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is most often diagnosed in people who experience repeated blows to the head. The disease is characterized by widespread deposits in the brain of an abnormal form of the protein tau, typical of some dementias. In this study just published in Jama the greatest damage was observed in the frontal lobe. “The frontal lobe plays a key role in judgment and attention as well as in planning and executing actions. It could also play a role in impulsiveness,” McKee said. Scientists have also observed an atrophy of the brain.
What happens to the children
There is no evidence, at present, that exposure to blows to the head at a young age increases the risk of developing CTE. “If someone suffered 5,000 blows to the head playing soccer between the ages of 8 and 18, they would have the same risk as someone who suffers them between the ages of 14 and 24,” explained Julie Stamm, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an interview with the Cnn. However, when a child begins to play, especially football, from an early age and continues into adolescence and adulthood, the risk of developing the disease increases. “Lifetime cumulative exposure to repetitive traumatic brain injury is the major risk factor for CTE,” says Stemm. According to data, the risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy doubles every 2.6 years.
September 1, 2023 (change September 1, 2023 | 08:42)
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