41% of Young Athletes Have Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

In a recent press release, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the results of a study funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), noting high rates of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in young athletes who died before 30 years old.

The study, published in JAMA Neurology, analyzed the brains of 152 deceased athletes who died before 30 years old. The data came from patients who donated their brains to the Understanding Neurologic Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Brain Bank between February 1, 2008, and September 31, 2022.

“Because CTE cannot be definitively diagnosed in individuals while living, it is unknown how commonly CTE occurs in such athletes. As in all brain bank studies, donors differ from the general population and no estimates of prevalence can be concluded from this research. Most of the study donors were White male football players with cognitive, behavioral, and/or mood symptoms,” noted the NIH press release.

“Their families desired neuropathologic examination after their loved one’s early death and donated to the Understanding Neurologic Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Brain Bank. There were no differences in cause of death or clinical symptoms between those with CTE and those without.”

The UNITE brain bank included data from neuropathologic evaluations, retrospective telephone clinical assessments, and questionnaires to informants. Each patient presented with some variation of the following symptoms: depression, apathy, uncontrolled behavior, and decision-making challenges. The information was analyzed from August 2021 to June 2023. Most of the study participants, 92.8%, were male, and the majority were White.

Approximately 63 individuals in the study population had CTE, accounting for 41% of the patient population. Most participants with CTE were amateur male soccer, football, ice hockey, and rugby players or wrestlers. In addition, a single participant was a female who played collegiate soccer.

The patients who presented with CTE were generally older and had been playing their contact sports for longer.

“Taken together, the findings demonstrate that evidence of CTE can be found in young, symptomatic athletes who play contact sports; however, more studies are needed to understand the relationship between repeated head injury, white matter damage, CTE, and clinical symptoms. Given that 58% of the brain donors who died at a young age did not have evidence of CTE, the causes of severe symptoms in this group are likely due to multiple factors,” concluded the release.