Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Research Papers

Head injuries are a major concern in the health care field as the United States has over 1.6 million cases per year. Contact sports such as boxing, football, wrestling, and soccer, as well as military personnel are highly vulnerable to sustain these types of injuries due repetitive contact or blasts in warfare. Although most of these injuries are rather mild and short lived, sustaining mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) repeatedly increases one’s chance for long term damage. These long term consequences range on a spectrum from mild to severe. The most severe long term effect being chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disorder that has affects on behavioral, cognitive, and/or motor

CTE has made a recent comeback in the 21st century after Omalu and colleagues discovered this condition in a national football player and a professional wrestler in 20051. The main problem with CTE is that it is not truly diagnosed until post-mortem when an autopsy can revel specific brain abnormalities such as tau neurofibrillary tangles. Due to the fact that it is not a true diagnosis until that point is what makes it so difficult to treat. Because of this, the National Institute of Neurogenic Disorders and Strokes has helped push efforts forward to understanding what pathologically is happening to produce these effects2. As an avid sports fan, CTE has had a great impact on American football that every year there have been rule changes in order to protect these players from this scary outcome. Personally, brain injuries and other neurological disorders are extremely interesting to me and are a specialty that I would be interested in in the years to come. As stated above, the people with the highest risk of developing CTE from mTBI are those in high contact sports and military personnel. For my project, I plan to just focus on CTE that has developed in athletes and will not include military

One group specifically used 280 mice to better understand the neurological sequelae that stems from mTBI. These 280 mice were split into 3 groups: control group that received no hits, single brain injury mice, and multiple brain injury mice who received a total of 42 hits (6 hits a day for 7 days). These researches constructed a specialized cone in which they could place a mouse into so that it would be comfortable but also make sure that it could not squeeze out as it was being hit. Mice that received a brain injury did so by having a helmet placed on their head, placed in the cone, and then a special made mechanical pin was used to hit each mouse on the head. After each mouse had received their due amounts of hits, they were ran through specific tests. All mice were only used once for a specific behavioral task at a time. These researchers tested motor function, spatial learning and memory, risk behaviors, depression-like behaviors, and sleep behavior. For motor function, mice were placed on a wire suspended 50 cm above the ground and timed how long the could hold on for. They had three trials and their average score was taken. For spatial learning and memory mice were placed in an opaque pool that had a small platform placed in it. Mice had the chance to adapt to the pool, get acquainted with where the platform was