Scans performed on 14 retired NFL players while they were still alive indicated the presence of tau, a type of protein that clumps up over neural cells that have been damaged, according to a study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery. But the scientists cautioned that the results needed to be confirmed, because CTE, a dementia-like disease linked to repetitive head trauma, can be definitively diagnosed only by examining brain tissue after a person’s death. While more research is needed to corroborate the result of the exam, the ability to identify CTE in the brain of a living patient is the first step toward understanding the development of the disease and developing a cure, the researchers said. He had also developed muscle twitching in his arms and decreased muscle mass in his shoulders and arms, the study states, and in addition to what doctors presumed was CTE he also suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
– In a potentially groundbreaking first, doctors say they detected chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head injuries, in a living patient. Just weeks after Boston University researchers announced CCL11 proteins in the brain could indicate CTE in living patients, researchers in Chicago say they identified CTE in a retired NFL player before he died by detecting different proteins. Initially, they performed brain exams on 14 former NFL players in 2012 while all were living. Over damaged neural cells, they found clumps of tau proteins—which are believed to kill brain cells, per ABC News—with a "specific topographic signature" doctors believed indicated a CTE finding, lead author Bennet Omalu tells CNN. Their suspicion was confirmed when former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill, who played football for 22 years but suffered only one reported concussion, died in 2015, allowing doctors to formally diagnose CTE during an autopsy, reports the Chicago Tribune. McNeill's wife later told researchers he'd started having trouble with simple motor skills two years after his brain was initially scanned. He was soon unable to feed himself and suffered from ALS, slurred speech, progressive dysphagia, and other health issues at his time of death, researchers write in the Neurosurgery journal. Though more work is needed to confirm the link between tau proteins and CTE, Omalu is optimistic and hopes a commercial test for CTE might be available in "less than five years." (Here's what Aaron Hernandez's brain revealed.)