First CTE Diagnosis in Living Patient Confirmed

In a potentially groundbreaking first, doctors say they detected chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head injuries, in a living patient. 

Just weeks after Boston University researchers announced CCL11 proteins in the brain could indicate CTE in living patients, researchers in Chicago say they identified CTE in a retired NFL player before he died by detecting different proteins. Initially, they performed brain exams on 14 former NFL players in 2012 while all were living. 

Over damaged neural cells, they found clumps of tau proteins—which are believed to kill brain cells, per ABC News—with a "specific topographic signature" doctors believed indicated a CTE finding, lead author Bennet Omalu tells CNN.

Read the full story on Newser.com

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