• Steven T DeKosky, Kaj Blennow, Milos D Ikonomovic, and Sam Gandy.
• Office of the Dean and Department of Neurology, University of Virginia School of Medicine, P. O. Box 800793, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA. dekosky@virginia.edu
• Nat Rev Neurol. 2013 Apr 1; 9 (4): 192-200.

AbstractOver the past decade, public awareness of the long-term pathological consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has increased. Such awareness has been stimulated mainly by reports of progressive neurological dysfunction in athletes exposed to repetitive concussions in high-impact sports such as boxing and American football, and by the rising number of TBIs in war veterans who are now more likely to survive explosive blasts owing to improved treatment. Moreover, the entity of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)--which is marked by prominent neuropsychiatric features including dementia, parkinsonism, depression, agitation, psychosis, and aggression--has become increasingly recognized as a potential late outcome of repetitive TBI. Annually, about 1% of the population in developed countries experiences a clinically relevant TBI. The goal of this Review is to provide an overview of the latest understanding of CTE pathophysiology, and to delineate the key issues that are challenging clinical and research communities, such as accurate quantification of the risk of CTE, and development of reliable biomarkers for single-incident TBI and CTE.

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