Most of the athletes who have donated to the Australian Sports Brain Bank show signs of brain trauma. 

Formed in 2018, the Australian Sports Brain Bank is a medical research laboratory located within the neuropathology department of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

Researchers say all but one of the 21 athletes whose brains have so far been donated to the Australian Sports Brain Bank have shown signs of neurodegeneration. 

In a research letter published this week, Associate Professor Michael Buckland and colleagues highlighted findings from the first 3 years of the Australian Sports Brain Bank (ASBB).

“All 21 donors had participated in sports with risks of repetitive head injury, including 17 who had played in football codes,” Dr Buckland and colleagues reported.

“All but one donor exhibited some form of neurodegeneration, and 13 had two or more neurodegenerative pathologies. The most frequent neuropathology was CTE: 12 donors had pathognomonic CTE lesions.”

CTE is associated with a range of neuro-psychological problems, ranging from mood and behavioural symptoms to cognitive impairment and dementia.

“CTE was identified in the brains of older former professionals with long playing careers, but also in younger, non-professional sportsmen and in recent professionals who had played under modern concussion guidelines,” Dr Buckland and colleagues found.

“Three donors with CTE were under 35 years of age.

“Six of the 12 donors with CTE and one of nine without CTE had died by suicide, suggesting CTE may be a suicide risk factor. Screening for CTE in all deaths by suicide is probably impractical, but our finding suggests it should be undertaken if a history of repetitive head injury is known or suspected.”

The authors acknowledged that ascertainment bias was “inevitable” in their study, saying “brain donations to the ASBB were motivated by clinical diagnoses or the concerns of family members”.

Despite that, they concluded:

“Our findings should encourage clinicians and policymakers to develop measures that further mitigate the risk of sport-related repetitive head injury.”