The 'Holy Grail' Of Spotting Brain Injury In Athletes May Have Been Discovered

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/holy-grail-of-spotting-brain-injury-in-athletes-2013-1

For years, researchers trying to determine whether concussion-prone football players suffered profound neurological damage had to wait until after the athletes' deaths to examine their brain tissue under a microscope.

But in a study published Tuesday in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, experts at Evanston's NorthShore Neurological Institute and the University of California at Los Angeles say they might be getting closer to detecting the dementialike condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in living people.

The study used brain scans to compare five former NFL players, all of whom had suffered at least one concussion, with five nonplayers roughly the same age.

The scans showed that the athletes' brains held significantly more tau -- a protein that builds up over damaged brain cells and is considered the hallmark evidence of CTE. Researchers have found heavy tau deposits in the brains of Junior Seau, Dave Duerson and other ex-players who committed suicide.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/holy-grail-of-spotting-brain-injury-in-athletes-2013-1#ixzz2Io6A4tWI

[HuckleB]

1. Recommended.

[mopinko]

2. this is my hospital

i dropped a note to my sleep doc/neurologist asking if he thought this would show that my central apnea/fibromyalgia could be the result of childhood concussions. i suppose such studies are a long way away with so many folks with severe injuries. but i will try to get in line when this filters down to looking at chronic problems like mine.

not that it matters that much at this point with no real treatments available (that i have heard), but maybe by then that will also start to come around.

[xchrom]

3. the best to you, mopinko

[mopinko]

4. thanks

i'm so sick of being sick. i feel like half a person sometimes.

to you, too.