Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

http://www.latimes.com/science/scienceno...story.html

EXCERPT: For more than a decade, researchers trying to make sense of the mysterious degenerative brain disease afflicting [gridiron] football players and other contact-sport athletes have focused on the threat posed by concussions. But new research suggests that attention was misguided. Instead of concerning themselves with the dramatic collisions that cause players to become dizzy, disoriented or even lose consciousness, neuroscientists should be paying attention to the routine hits to the head, according to a study that examines the root cause of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, better known as CTE. [...] Some of the hits that cause CTE may result in concussion, Goldstein said. But his team’s findings show that concussion is not necessary to trigger the process. [...[ That new research underscores that the kinds of “sub-concussive” blows to the head that many athletes routinely endure are far more worrisome than players, their parents and their physicians have been led to believe....

MORE: http://www.latimes.com/science/scienceno...story.html

That makes it even worse. Now any head impact at all can start the debilitating process of CTE without even a concussion. I hope parents of young boys take note.

"That and other evidence led the researchers to hypothesize that early CTE may result from leaky blood vessels in the brain. In the deep recesses of the organ’s folds, these damaged blood vessels were letting proteins spill into nearby brain tissue, triggering inflammation, they surmised."