New Evidence on CTE and Dementia Association

A Boston University study found that advanced chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was associated with higher odds of dementia compared with donors without CTE.

In an autopsy series of 614 brain donors with histories of repetitive head impacts (366 with CTE, 248 without), adjusted analyses linked stage III-IV CTE to an approximately fourfold increase in odds of dementia.

Many donors with CTE pathology had been diagnosed during life as having Alzheimer-type or unspecified dementia. Postmortem examination frequently did not show the amyloid burden or the topographic tau pattern characteristic of Alzheimer disease, indicating that CTE-related dementia is commonly misclassified clinically when exposure history and targeted phenotyping are not documented.

Neuropathology in CTE is marked by perivascular phosphorylated tau at the depths of cortical sulci, focal patchy involvement, and a tau distribution that differs topographically from Alzheimer disease.