TITLE:
Diagnostic Prospectives with Tau Protein and Imaging Techniques to Detect Development of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
AUTHORS:
Amit Naskar, Danielle Jayanty, Kimberly Head, Gulshan L. Khanna, Vatsalya Vatsalya, Arpan Banerjee
KEYWORDS:
Athletes, Axonal Injury, Tau Protein, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Boxing, Wrestling
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science,
Vol.13 No.4,
April
30,
2023
ABSTRACT: Brain damage sustained from repeated blows in boxing, wrestling, and other combat sports has serious physical and mental health consequences. The degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), presents clinically with memory loss, aggression, difficulty in rational thinking and other cognitive problems. This spectrum, which mimics Alzheimer’s disease, is diagnosed post-mortem through a brain biopsy in many professional athletes. However, little is known about the process of development and how to identify vulnerable individuals who may be on course for developing CTE. Boxing is a sport that has a severe toll on athletes’ health, primarily on their brain health and function. This review addresses the concerns of brain injury, describes the pathologies that manifest in multiple scales, e.g., molecular and cognitive, and also proposes possible diagnostic and prognostic markers to characterize the early onset of CTE along with the aim to identify a starting point for future precautions and interventions.