Dementia warning: The study reveals that brain damage can be caused by a single blow on the head | Science | New



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Concerns were raised about the long-term effects of contact sports after a series of athletes developed degenerative brain disorders.

Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's Syndrome in 1984, just three years after his retirement. , which his doctors attributed to boxing-related injuries.

The English striker Jeff Astle, famous for leading the ball, also died of chronic traumatic encephalopathy at the age of 59.

Willie Stewart, a neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow and principal investigator on the project, pointed out the similarity between minor repetitive traumas experienced in contact sports with severe head injuries.

He writes in the journal Brain: is a false badumption that being hit by a car causes a different brain injury to be hit on a rugby pitch thousands of times during your career.

"Underpi Indeed, the biological processes are very similar if not identical."

"This is only the dose of the injury that is different."

The study found that & # 39; A single traumatic brain injury can produce a defective form of neural proteins, which can then spread throughout the brain.

Scientists have discovered that "tau" proteins, which are typically located in the brain and hold together cerebral cells, became "defective" at the site of injury and formed abnormal forms.

They found that deposition of abnormal forms of tau protein was much more common in patients with brain injury and trauma than in those with a healthy brain

Mr. Stewart stated, "One of the striking features when we look at the brains of people who have been exposed to brain injury, it is the abnormal deposit of tau.

"It seems that this abnormal protein can" germinate "or spread in the brain."

sand in an oyster. "

Dr. Stewart noted that when tau proteins become" abnormally folded "by brain damage, they can transmit their abnormal forms to other proteins, creating an" evolutionary pathology. "

The scientist raised the possibility of treating trauma-related dementia by "targeting tau protein and preventing it from spreading."

In an optimistic conclusion, he said, "This gives us a new way of fighting against dementia. "

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