Word: tau
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...whom he'd assumed from their depiction on TV to be Neanderthals, were warm and smart and less neurotic than Californians. The social life at Tulane was splendid. "I was a drunk," says Breitbart, who estimates he spent five nights a week at New Orleans bars with fellow Delta Tau Delta fraternity members. The classroom experience was less satisfying. "I didn't read Mark Twain," he says. "I read critical theorists. I graduated with a degree in nihilism and nothingness...
...shattered brains of dead football players. On this Friday afternoon, Hadley has come to visit Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neurological researcher who has received a dozen brains donated from former NFL, college and high school players. In each one, it's simple to spot a protein called tau, which defines a debilitating disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Common symptoms of CTE include sudden memory loss, paranoia and depression during middle age. The disease is also known as dementia pugilistica, or punch-drunk syndrome, because until recently the overwhelming majority of its victims were boxers...
...wants to see, in raw, microscopic detail, what could await him. All CTE victims have had some kind of head trauma, and Hadley has received four concussion diagnoses during his college days. As they examine images under a microscope, McKee tells Hadley that the brown splotches represent the dreaded tau buildup in the brain. The brains are as brown as the pigskin itself. (See "The Year in Health 2009: From...
Hadley's veneer is strong but no longer impenetrable. Though not quite big enough for the NFL, Hadley has thought about pursuing a pro-football career in Europe's minor leagues. However, after reading about football's potential cognitive consequences and seeing all that tau, he's reconsidering that career move. He'll either pursue the dream of playing pro football or give his long-term health first priority. At least he's thinking about it. Perhaps the football fixing has begun...
...came as a bit of a surprise. That gene's activity affects the junction between nerve cells, where various neurochemicals work to relay signals from one nerve cell to another. While most of the research attention in Alzheimer's has been on the build up of amyloid protein and tau tangles that strangle nerve function, the identification of PICALM suggests that some part of the disease may have to do with a breakdown in nerve-cell communication at the junctures. "If you had given people a list of genes and said which ones were involved in late onset Alzheimer...