Traumatic Brain Injury Linked to Alzheimer’s and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

Posted April 11, 2013

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) can lead to neurodegenerative syndromes that include Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

The April issue of Nature Reviews Neurology is devoted to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Cure Alzheimer’s Fund research consortium member, Sam Gandy, M.D., Ph.D., of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is senior author of the lead review and overview.

Over the past decade, public awareness of the long-term pathological consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has increased. Such awareness has been stimulated mainly by reports of progressive neurological dysfunction in athletes exposed to repetitive concussions in high-impact sports such as boxing and American football, and by the rising number of TBIs in war veterans who are now more likely to survive explosive blasts owing to improved treatment. Moreover, the entity of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—which is marked by prominent neuropsychiatric features including dementia, Parkinsonism, depression, agitation, psychosis, and aggression—has become increasingly recognized as a potential late outcome of repetitive TBI. Annually, about 1% of the population in developed countries experiences a clinically relevant TBI.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund contributed to this study.

Read the full article here.