Brain is damaged by repeated head trauma, even without a concussion

A group of American and Israeli researchers published a study in the journal Brain, suggesting that hits to the head, even those that do not cause an overt concussion, contribute to the chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE has been found in many football players, combat veterans, and other athletes who suffer from repeated head injuries.

The current study examined brains of four teenage athletes who had sustained repetitive hits to the head in the days and weeks before their death. They did not have typical symptoms of concussion – headaches, dizziness, confusion, memory difficulties, or vision problems. One of them had an early-stage CE and two had accumulation of tau protein that is implicated in CTE and Alzheimer’s disease.

These researchers proceeded to create a mouse model of repetitive and subconcussive head trauma, which also showed that relatively mild repetitive head injuries lead to degenerative changes in the brain.

These findings are not very surprising – repeatedly hitting your head cannot be good for your brain, regardless of the severity of each injury. However, many questions remain unanswered – what is the role of certain genetic traits that are known to predispose to CTE, could magnesium, which is depleted by trauma, or other supplements help reduce the damage, and what other interventions could possibly protect the brain.