Ever heard of CTE? How about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (that’s a mouthful!) or punch drunk? Well if you haven’t heard of it listen (or read) up. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is caused by repeated brain trauma, think of boxers or football players. Remember Dave Duerson, Junior Seau and Adrian Robinson? Well all of these professional football players committed suicide, and all were diagnosed with CTE after their death.

So...what is CTE?

CTE is caused by repeated brain trauma. When we get hit in the head or our bodies absorb a heavy blow our brains slosh around inside of our skulls and hit the “walls”. This causes a concussion, which is a bruise on the brain. For a time the injury to the brain changes how your brain works, causing headaches, memory problems, trouble concentrating, and problems with balance/coordination. If you’ve had a particularly bad concussion, after a while you may feel fine but your brain may still be recovering. In addition everyone takes a different amount of time to heal. It’s not like a broken arm where you can pretty much insure that after 4-6 weeks it will be healed. And since a concussion is not visible to anyone just looking at you, a coach, for example may pressure you to come back to the game before your brain is healed.

Imagine the amount of pressure a professional football player is under to return to the games, even if their concussion isn’t healed. Interestingly enough, football helmets don’t prevent all concussions, but they certainly are an improvement on the leather skull caps players used to wear. One concussions effects are not permanent, but repeated concussions over time, you guessed it... cause permanent and degenerative brain damage.

This is why so many athletes in competitive contact sports, especially professional athletes, have issues with their brain as they age (dementia). CTE is somewhat similar to Alzheimer's and dementia in the way that it progresses over time, and the way it changes the person with it. But unlike either Alzheimer's and dementia, CTE doesn’t wait until old age to start, there is no way to definitively diagnose CTE while the victim is alive, and there are no treatments for it.

When the brain is functioning normally the neurons pass along signals through the axon to other cells. When a person gets a concussion the neurons are not able to send messages over the axons for a little. With repeated concussions the axons actually start to unravel and the Tau protein that held them together breaks off and starts to collect in certain areas. After the axon has broken apart it cannot be repaired and the neuron, unable to communicate, dies. As CTE progresses more Tau collects which means that neurons are dying. So essentially the Tau breakup strangles the brain and decreases function. Which is why the person with the disease experiences personality changes much like a Alzheimer's or dementia patient. There are many symptoms of CTE, including depression and suicidal behavior. Which is why so many victims of CTE kill themselves. As the disease progresses a person may exhibit many different symptoms.

Since CTE is not very well understood at this time, early prevention is the recommended course of treatment. If a person never receives the concussions that cause CTE, CTE will logically never develop. As I said earlier, the protection equipment we have doesn’t 100% stop concussions, and many contact sports don’t have anything that even attempts to protect the brain (rugby, wrestling, soccer). And many people ignore their concussions and “fight through the pain”, although this may give you temporary notoriety, it is doing far more damage. Take care of your brain, there are plenty of diseases out there that happen naturally, you don’t need to tempt fate by causing a preventable disease to yourself.