CTE: The Hidden Risk Of Playing Contact Sports

Source: kids.frontiersin.org | Re-Post Duerson Fund 8/26/2019 –

Have you ever played a sport and hit your head by accident, maybe colliding with the ground or with another person? You might have experienced a ringing pain or a headache in the short term, but have you ever considered what repetitive hits to the head might do to your brain in the long term? When we play sports, we tend to focus on the fun parts, like the competition, teamwork, and the joy of winning. However, people usually do not consider the possible consequences of sports injuries on their mental health. Contact sports like football, soccer, boxing, as well as domestic violence and bomb blast waves, might damage the human brain more than expected, even after all the initial symptoms of the injury are gone.

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by a single injury, called a traumatic brain injury (TBI)Damage in the brain caused by a sudden hit to the head. TBIs can occur from accidents, sports, or other physical traumas., the body is affected in many different ways, depending on the intensity of the damage. When there are repeated injuries to the brain, those people are at a higher risk for developing something called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)A disease developed after multiple traumatic brain injuries, through the breakdown of brain cells.. Chronic stands for “long-lasting,” traumatic means “intense,” and encephalopathy refers to any process that alters the function or the structure of the brain. Severe hits can injure opposite sides of the brain, through the coup and countercoup model.A model representing how an initial injury (coup) can have enough force to cause damage on the opposite side of the brain (countercoup). How do opposite sides of the brain get injured? Well, the coup is the initial injury that occurs from a hit, while the countercoup injury occurs on the opposite side of the brain as the brain hits the inside of the skull (Figure 2). When the injury is intense, the brain can develop long-term damage in multiple areas that can significantly impair brain function, possibly leading to memory loss and, in a few cases, even death.

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