Ad: Manage updates with the Download App

cte

Brain scan may spot disease in athletes while they're still alive

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease thought to play a role in the deaths (which are sometimes suicides) of athletes, soldiers, and others who have suffered concussions and repeated hits to the head, is currently only able to be diagnosed postmortem.

"After a while it gets old and not so fulfilling to take the brain out when [an athlete] is dead," Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and director of the Brain Injury Research Institute, told CNN. "At that point there is no solution, no answer."

So a study co-authored by Bailes suggesting that PET scans … Read more

Noninvasive 'virtual biopsy' diagnoses brain injury

For many, getting hit in the head too many times might bring to mind famed boxer Muhammad Ali, but brain injuries across several sports, including hockey and American football, have prompted investigations into headgear and even the nature of the sports themselves.

For now, the only way to diagnose what is called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is to inspect brain tissue during autopsies--in other words, after the point at which such a diagnosis could help the afflicted.

So while results from a study out of Boston of a noninvasive "virtual biopsy" technique on live subjects are both small-scale … Read more