Monday, November 5, 2018

Why do some people get CTE? It may be in their genes

Studies have been conducted on those with CTE and though most people believe the cause of the disease is from repeated hits to the heads, scientists are starting to believe there might be a genetic reason that it affects people differently. The gene TMEM106B may influence why some people develop more severe forms of the disease than others. Scientists argued that among patients with the disease, those with a genetic mutation were 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia. In a study, scientists studied 86 football players who had CTE and compared them to 376 people who did not have CTE. They found that people who had CTE and those who had the gene variant had lower amounts of tau and reduced inflammation in the brain, both of which contribute to the disease.
The studies are still in the early stages, so they have a long way to go before they can be published and considered true, but the fact that they are starting to find reasons people act differently with the same disease is amazing.These findings could help so many people, and eventually could probably go beyond the scope of just CTE and help treat dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Finding out what causes this disease to develop into dementia could be a stepping stone to figuring out what causes dementia, and hopefully could create a cure or treatment to slow the process.


https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/03/health/genetic-cte-severity-study/index.html
https://concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/what-is-CTE

1 comment:

  1. I believe that this is a very important area of research especially for football players. There is not enough research on the causes of CTE. Alzheimer's disease and dementia can drastically affect an individual. This research will hopefully find the underlying cause of CTE and prevent other players from being harmed.

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