Traumatic brain injuries from rugby associated with increased dementia risk
The journal Brain has published two papers linking traumatic brain injury to dementia.
Researchers from Imperial College London used data from retired professional rugby players and found changes in their brains and raised levels of proteins in their blood that could increase the risk of developing dementia in later life.
You can read the papers here:
‘Biomarker evidence of neurodegeneration in mid-life former rugby players’ https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/148/8/2684/8178840
‘Brain health concerns in former rugby players: clinical and cognitive phenotypes’
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/148/8/2698/8178235
Dr Jacqui Hanley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, says:
“Not much is known about how traumatic brain injury causes long-term changes to the brain, so the findings from this latest research raise some interesting areas for further study. As this study is running for four more years, it will be interesting to see what else it reveals and if the physical changes seen here will predict memory and thinking problems later in their lives.”
Find out more from Imperial College London here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/265518/dementia-rare-midlife-rugby-players-long-term/