Now, a study1 published today in Science Translational Medicine reveals that the protective shield known as the blood'brain barrier can be damaged and leaky decades after an athlete retires from sport. This persistent leakiness seems to trigger a long-lasting immune response that is closely tied to cognitive decline, the study finds. The work is a 'very important study that finds the disruption of the blood'brain barrier many years after head trauma', says Katerina Akassoglou, a neuroimmunologist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California, who was not involved in the research. Part of the difficulty in studying the long-term effects of head trauma is that some neurodegenerative conditions, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), can be diagnosed only by examining neuronal tissue after death, says Matthew Campbell, a specialist in neurovascular genetics at Trinity College Dublin, who co-authored the paper. Campbell and his colleagues wanted to see whether they...
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