Concussion/CTE/EHT
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a form of encephalopathy that is a progressive degenerative disease in individuals with a history of multiple concussions and other forms of head injury. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in American football, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports who have experienced repetitive brain trauma. It has also been found in soldiers exposed to a blast or a concussive injury, in both cases resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. Individuals with CTE may show symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression, which generally appear years or many decades after the trauma. The Tau protein and its role in CTE
Tau is a microtubule-associated protein. It lines up on the inside of the nerve cell and stabilizes the nerve cell. It's important for regulating the nerve cell. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a neurodegenerative disorder, so it's a disease where the brain starts to deteriorate, and as it deteriorates it builds up huge amounts of this protein in the form of what's called neurofibrillary tangle. So they're inclusions inside nerve cells, and they look sort of like skeins of yarn or like tangles. That's why their name is that. In CTE, you see tangles, these tau-containing tangles, in a very unique pattern throughout the brain. There are other diseases that have tau protein, like Alzheimer's disease, or even some other diseases, but not in this pattern. This is a very unique and distinctive pattern.
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