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HEAD TO HEAD: Hard hits can turn a healthy brain (left) into one with CTE (right).
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Brain Trauma Investigator
Robert Stern and Ann McKee study how contact sports affect the brain
BRAIN TEAM: Stern (left) and McKee
On February 4, millions of Americans will tune in to watch the Super Bowl. Two of those viewers will be Robert Stern and Ann McKee. They’re not just any football fans, though. Stern and McKee are neuroscientists at Boston University in Massachusetts who study the brain. They’ve been investigating the effects of football on players’ brains.
Recently, Stern was part of a team of scientists, led by McKee, who conducted the largest study yet of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This disease affects athletes with a history of repeated blows to the head. It’s marked by brain damage that worsens over time, continuing long after players retire. Stern spoke to Science World about their research and how young athletes can protect themselves.
How did you become interested in CTE?
I’ve studied neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s for decades. These are diseases that gradually attack the nervous system, including the brain. About 10 years ago, I was giving a talk on brain disease and an audience member told me they knew someone who wanted to meet me. It turned out to be Chris Nowinski, a retired WWE wrestler. Nowinski suspected that repeated hits he took in the ring had impaired his brain function. He’d started a foundation to study the long-term effects of concussions—brain injuries caused by blows to the head. After speaking with him, I wanted to study CTE.
What did your recent study on CTE reveal?
Our team examined 111 brains from deceased former National Football League (NFL) players. We discovered that 110 of them had CTE. We also looked at 53 brains from college football players who gave up the sport after they graduated—48 of them had CTE. And we checked 14 brains from people who played football only through high school—three of those had CTE.
The brains in the study were mainly donated by family members who were concerned about whether football had affected their loved ones’ brains, so they may not reflect all football players. But our results do show that CTE is associated with playing tackle football early in life, not just at the professional level.
Why did the study look only at the brains of deceased players?
You can’t accurately diagnose CTE during life. CTE leads to problems while people are alive, like changes in mood and problems with thinking. So you can make a well-educated guess that they’re suffering from CTE based on symptoms, but until you examine the brain tissue, you can’t know for sure. To diagnose CTE, we look for the buildup of an abnormal protein—a large biological molecule—in specific parts of the brain. In severe cases, areas of the brain are destroyed.
This graph shows the number of NFL players’ brains with CTE in the Boston University study, sorted by position. Is this data sufficient to predict which positions are most likely to develop the disease? Why or why not?
What else have you learned about brain trauma in young players?
I recently conducted a study of the risks of contact sports to younger athletes’ brains. I found that children who start playing tackle football before the age of 12 are three times more likely to have behavioral and mood problems than those who start playing after that age.
What should young athletes who are concerned about your findings do?
Don’t let worry about a brain disease prevent you from being an athlete. Keep being active and involved in sports. But talk to your parents about alternatives to playing tackle football until you are older. Young people need to protect the most important organ in their body from being hit potentially hundreds of times per season. Some of the NFL’s most successful players didn’t play tackle football until high school.