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 The syndrome, also known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE),
is linked to repeated blows to the head and causes a type of
dementia similar to Alzheimer's, which is characterized by
behavioral changes, confusion and memory loss.
CTE can affect people who play contact sports such as boxing, rugby,
soccer and football, but can currently be diagnosed only after
death, since brain tissues have to be removed and analyzed to
confirm presence of the disease.
Like Alzheimer's - a brain-wasting condition that affects up to 50
million people worldwide - CTE features the abnormal build-up of
certain proteins in the brain. One of those, tau, forms filaments
that clump up in tangles inside cells.
In this study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday,
researchers from Britain's Medical Research Council Laboratory of
Molecular Biology (LMB) were able to detail the atomic structures of
the abnormal tau filaments in CTE.
"Our new knowledge of these structures could make it possible to
diagnose CTE in living patients by developing tracer compounds that
will specifically bind to the tau filaments of CTE," said Michel
Goedert, an LMB researcher who co-led the study.
The research involved scientists extracting tau filaments from the
brains of three people with CTE post-mortem - one former
professional American football player and two former professional
boxers.
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The filaments were then imaged using a technique known as cryo-electron
microscopy. The team found that while the tau structures from the
three patients with CTE were identical, they were also different
from those seen in Alzheimer's.
This could in future help doctors distinguish between various forms
of dementia when diagnosing patients, the team said, and also
furthers understanding of how and why tau forms disease-specific
clumps and folds.
"We don't know the chemical nature of these molecules yet, but we
suspect they may play a role in the assembly of tau into filaments,
and that their abundance may determine why some individuals develop
CTE and others do not," said Sjors Scheres, who co-led the work.
He said the next stage of research will be to identify those
molecules and understand more about their role in tau build-up.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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