Study of former football players seeks way to diagnose CTE before death

Researchers looking for a way to diagnose a trauma-related degenerative brain disease in living former football players had mixed results. In a small study of 26 former players and 31 controls, PET scans of each group found the football players had higher levels of the protein tau in brain regions that are associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a syndrome now diagnosed only after death. However, the amount of tau deposits were not associated with the players’ performance on cognitive and neuropsychiatric tests. The study also found that the football players — despite reporting cognitive and behavioral difficulties— did not have higher brain levels of amyloid beta compared to the controls, suggesting that their neurological symptoms were not related to Alzheimer’s disease.