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This video is adapted from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1mt2YDiVKc
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a neurological condition linked primarily to repetitive head trauma. In this video, I discuss what happens in the brain during CTE. [1][2][3][4]
For an article (on my website) that discusses CTE more in-depth, click this link: Know Your Brain: Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) (neuroscientificallychallenged.com)
TRANSCRIPT:
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a neurological condition linked primarily to repetitive head trauma. Most cases of CTE occur in those who play sports where head injuries are common, but anyone who has experienced repeated head trauma is at risk. CTE symptoms generally begin to appear years after head trauma and may include: memory deficits and other cognitive impairment, abnormal behavior such as paranoia, aggression and impulsivity, mood disturbances such as depression, and movement problems such as tremor and other symptoms similar to those seen in Parkinson’s disease. In most cases, CTE is a progressive condition that gets worse over time.
Although the pathology of CTE in the brain is not fully understood, a common feature of CTE involves a protein called tau that’s normally involved in maintaining the structure of the cell. In CTE, tau proteins accumulate in neurons and other cells like astrocytes to form abnormal clusters or aggregates. The tau aggregates are called neurofibrillary tangles when they form in neurons and astrocytic or glial tangles when they form in astrocytes. The role of tau aggregates in disease progression is still not fully understood, but it’s thought they can disrupt cellular communication, and their presence is associated with the degeneration and death of neurons. They also seem to be able to spread throughout the brain, so a neuron that develops neurofibrillary tangles may cause surrounding neurons to develop them as well.
Initially, tau aggregates primarily form close to the surface of the cerebral cortex, but as the disease progresses they spread throughout the cortex and to other areas of the brain like the hippocampus, amygdala, and various other regions. The spread of the tau pathology is correlated with other degenerative signs, such as general atrophy of the brain, severe neuronal loss in areas such as the hippocampus and amygdala, and less substantial neuronal loss in a number of other brain regions.