Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been widely discussed for the past several years, as it continues to impact those who suffer from repeated blows to the head – particularly professional football players and those involved in contact sports. While much remains to be discovered about this degenerative brain disease, recent studies have indicated CTE can have an impact on younger generations involved in sports as well. Understanding how brain damage from CTE can affect brain health can help us better understand how the disease progresses.
CTE and Brain Damage
CTE is a progressive degenerative brain disease commonly found in people with a history of repetitive head impacts. Most often, the disease is seen in athletes, including football, hockey, and other players of contact sports, military servicemembers, those employed as first responders, and individuals engaging in other activities where a blow to the head could occur. Despite the popular belief that a concussion would need to first be diagnosed to determine if CTE could be present, non-concussive hits that do not cause symptoms also have the potential to lead to a CTE diagnosis. This is particularly concerning, as non-concussive hits are routine in many sports, including soccer where heading the ball is a common tactic used by players. While research into the disease is ongoing on many fronts, new studies indicate its effects could be more widespread than once thought.
According to a 2023 study by Boston University’s CTE Center, more than 60 cases of CTE were discovered in athletes who were under the age of 30 at their time of death, making it the largest study yet to review the neurodegenerative disease in young people. In the study, the donors’ ages at the time of death ranged from 13 to 29 years old. The youngest person to be diagnosed with CTE in the study was a 17-year-old high school football player.
As CTE can currently only be diagnosed after death, researchers found roughly 40% of the brains reviewed had already developed some of the earliest signs of the disease associated with repeated head trauma. The study also included what researchers believe to be the first case of an American female athlete diagnosed with the disease. Unlike prior studies that reviewed CTE primarily among professional football players in the U.S., the majority of athletes diagnosed in this 2023 study were amateur athletes who played at the youth, high school, and college levels.
CTE most commonly occurs when repeated impacts to the head or brain trauma trigger progressive degeneration of the brain tissue. This includes the buildup of an abnormal protein called tau. The pattern of the tau protein seen in the brains of those with CTE is distinct from other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or corticobasal degeneration. These changes in the brain can begin as early as months, years, or even decades in some cases after the last brain trauma or end of athletic involvement.
As the overall effects and impacts of CTE continue to be discussed, many former professional athletes have turned their focus towards learning more about the impact contact sports can have on the brain and brain health. For instance, one former WWE wrestler is CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) which is dedicated to concussion and CTE research.
The organization discussed the main issues involved with CTE and brain health, one of which is that it’s not easy to avoid head injuries in contact sports like football, professional wrestling, and hockey. While concussions have been widely linked to CTE, any repeated injuries to the head over time could be dangerous even if they don’t cause a player to lose consciousness. This is because the threshold for damaging the brain is actually below a concussion level according to the CLF’s research. This means that any athlete can take multiple hits to the head and feel fine afterward, when in actuality an inflammatory process that rots the brain may have begun.
While a CTE diagnosis can only be made after death, new research has suggested certain signs and behaviors can point to the disease being present while the person is still alive. According to the CLF, when a person has CTE, lesions will spread throughout the brain, which effectively changes the way it functions and how a person acts. This typically triggers issues with memory and cognition, mood or behavior, aggression, anxiety, paranoia, impulse control, and violent outbursts—all of which are symptoms of CTE.
In many instances, the CLF has found that family members and close friends of former or current athletes with CTE are the best at diagnosing it, as they witness these prevalent behavioral changes. According to the CLF, two out of every three times a brain is donated to the foundation, the person will be found to have CTE.
While research into CTE and its effects is ongoing, it’s clear that brain health can suffer incredibly following multiple blows to the head.
How Blows to the Head Impact Brain Health
As research has found, CTE can be present without the need for a concussion to trigger it. The brain has a cushioned, Jell-O-like texture that is suspended in cerebrospinal fluid, but a hit from a hard tackle or fist can still cause damage. Besides bruising and swelling, the brain can be forced to elongate and stretch nerve cells and their axons which transmit messages between cells. While one mild blow won’t do too much damage, repeated forceful hits can greatly impact the brain, causing CTE to form.
CTE is the result of progressive brain damage, most often present in the frontal lobe, which controls functions like judgment, emotion, impulse control, and memory. When CTE is present, a signature feature is abnormal deposits of the tau protein. This protein occurs normally in brain cells to help them maintain their shape and function. However, in brains with CTE, the tau protein forms clumps inside nerve cells. These clumps can damage and kill off the nerve cells and then spread as the disease progresses. Abnormal tau deposits have been found in other brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Signs and Symptoms of CTE
Currently, there are no specific symptoms that have been linked to CTE. Some of the commonly experienced symptoms found in those who have been diagnosed with the disease postmortem can occur in many other conditions. In those who were confirmed to have CTE at autopsy, some of the most common signs and symptoms of someone with brain damage from CTE include:
Cognitive Impairment
- Trouble thinking
- Memory loss
- Problems with planning, organization, and carrying out tasks
Behavioral Changes
- Impulsive behavior
- Aggression
Mood Disorders
- Depression or apathy
- Emotional instability
- Substance misuse
- Suicidal thoughts or behavior
Motor Symptoms
- Problems with walking and balance
- Parkinsonism, which causes shaking, slow movement, and trouble with speech
- Motor neuron disease, which destroys cells that control walking, speaking, swallowing, and breathing
NCAA Head Injury Attorneys
As research surrounding the effects of brain damage from CTE continues, those involved in collegiate sports who have suffered injuries due to negligence must seek legal representation. At Raizner Slania, we’ve worked firsthand with athletes who have suffered injuries due to the negligence of coaches, the NCAA, universities, and athletic conferences. If you or someone you know has suffered a head injury caused by sports-related concussions, our compassionate NCAA head injury attorneys can help.
