Catching CTE: Blood tests may provide alternative for diagnosis
The National Football League’s grants for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) research may be bearing fruit, according to Robert Stern, PhD, Professor of Neurology at Boston University. Technology developed by biotech firm Quanterix—funded in part by the NFL—detected higher numbers of tau proteins in the blood of 96 former football players.
Tau proteins are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and CTE, and the buildup of tau is a one of the few indicators of CTE in living patients. While diagnosing CTE in living patients is still out of reach, Stern’s blood test is much cheaper than detecting tau proteins through neuroimaging, which may represent a cost-effective method of diagnosis in the future.