Neurology
September 2013
Objective: The goal of this study was to examine the clinical presentation of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in neuropathologically confirmed cases.
Methods: Thirty-six adult male subjects were selected from all cases of neuropathologically confirmed CTE at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy brain bank. Subjects were all athletes, had no comorbid neurodegenerative or motor neuron disease, and had next-of-kin informants to provide retrospective reports of the subjects' histories and clinical presentations.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive tauopathy that occurs as a consequence of repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. We analysed post-mortem brains obtained from a cohort of 85 subjects with histories of repetitive mild traumatic brain injury and found evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in 68 subjects: all males, ranging in age from 17 to 98 years (mean 59.5 years), including 64 athletes, 21 military veterans (86% of whom were also athletes) and one individual who engaged in self-injurious head banging behaviour.
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