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IED Blast Exposed Vets and Pro Footballers show similar damage
Researchers reported on a case study series involving four military veterans with a mean age of 32.3 years and known exposure to blast and concussive injuries who were compared with four amateur athletes with histories of repetitive concussive injuries, mean age of 20.8 years, and a comparison group of four normal subjects with no known exposure to blast or concussive injuries with a mean age of 20.5. Here’s what the study revealed:
- The brains of all four veterans revealed “CTE-linked neuropathology characterized by perivascular foci of tau-immunoreactive neurofibrillary tangles and glial tangles in the inferior frontal, dorsolateral frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices”.
- The pathology observed in veterans was largely similar to CTE findings in the brains of the four young athletes in the study.
- Such findings were readily differentiated from neuropathologies associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disorders. By contrast, the four control group cases showed no signs of CTE.
The study can be found in Neurology Today, Volume 12 (12), June 21, 2012, p 1-17
Click here to read the MilHealth synopsis of the study:
tag lines: brain injury in veterans, CTE, multiple concussions
