Chronic traumatic encephalopathy

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, abbreviated CTE, is a neurodegenerative disease due to repeated trauma.

General

• Due to head trauma - usually repetitive.
  • Seen in American football and boxing.
    • The in the context of boxing it is known as dementia pugilistica; pugil is boxer in Latin.
• May be associated with motor neuron disease.

Microscopic

Features:

• Wall-to-wall neurofibrillary tangles.
  • Common in olfactory bulb, mammillary bodies, hippocampus.
  • Usually perivascular.
  • Often superficial (unlike Alzheimer disease) and at the deep aspect of sulci.

IHC

• Increased TDP-43 staining.

Note:

• ALS associated with trauma brain injuries.

See also

• Neurodegenerative diseases.
• Neuropathology.