CTE, Football and Woodpeckers

[Michael Oberdorfer]

Hard head hits and concussions are part of football despite efforts by the NFL to the contrary. So is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and the associated accumulation of Tau protein in the brain.

We saw an example of a hard head hit during the Super Bowl when Patriots receiver Brandin Cooks was leveled by such a hit.

Football and CTE have become an issue since the airing of the PBS documentary “League of Denial.” Research by Bennet Omalu, Ann Mckee and others have documented this association further. This work was featured recently in The New York Times.

Recent studies have used the woodpecker as an animal model for head hits and the associated accumulation of Tau in their brains. The paper appears in PLOS One and was reported in The Washington Post.