FLICKR, THE U.S ARMY
Head injuries resulting from blast trauma during military combat may lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease recently diagnosed in a number of former athletes. According to a new study published in Science Translational Medicine yesterday (May 16), brain autopsies of four deceased US veterans revealed the telltale signs of CTE: damage to axons and tangles of the protein tau, a protein closely linked to dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. The soldiers, whose ages ranged between 22 and 45, had also all experienced cognitive, emotional, and impulse-control problems prior to their deaths. But unlike the CTE pathology described in American football players and wrestlers, which is primarily observed in the brain’s frontal lobes, the damage to the veterans’ brains was more evenly distributed.
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