Doctors can now detect the early stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in patients using the PET scan brain imaging technique. The brain disease is commonly caused by repetitive head trauma experienced mostly by athletes.
Previously, the only method of diagnosing CTE was during a post-mortem examination. This meant that the family and close friends of a patient would have known the brain disease only after the patient's death
The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online journal, will help doctors to come up with a treatment for CTE and to monitor the stages of the brain disease.
Some symptoms of CTE include mood swings and loss of memory. This is due to the accumulation of "tau," a protein in the brain that is involved in the process of thinking and changing moods.
The team of researchers from the University of California's David Geffen School of Medicine used the positron emission tomography (PET) scan to search for the clumps of the tau protein in the brain.
Researchers managed to scan 14 retired professional football players, who have increased risks of having CTE because of the nature of their sport.
In order for the tau protein clumps to appear on PET scans, the researchers injected FDDNP, a chemical that is very sensitive with tau protein. The researchers found that more of the tau protein clumps showing during the PET scan are located in the dorsal midbrain and amygdala, the parts of the brain that are needed to regulate pain and to experience negative emotions, according to Healthline.
About 47 percent of retired professional boxers that have been in the industry are believed by the researchers to exhibit symptoms.
In another more recent study from Neurosurgery, stated that 13 out of 14 athletes who died unexpectedly showed development of the brain disease/. Most of the unfortunate patients were boxers, wrestlers and football players.
"These promising results provide the basis for a larger trial to determine the scope of this imaging procedure for CTE," the researchers wrote in their study.