News & Headlines

Since being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot four years ago, Warren Sapp has traveled each August to Canton, Ohio, to join the game's greats returning for induction ceremonies. But with each passing year, it seemed too many of his fellow NFL players were in failing health and slipping further into a fog as a result of head injuries sustained during their careers."I said, 'I can't do this. I can't stay on the sideline and watch Tony Dorsett and Willie Brown and all the great ones deteriorate before my eyes,' " Sapp told the Tampa Bay Times.

The brains of men and women are wired differently, and when it comes to traumatic brain injuries (TBI), women are more likely to develop subsequent neuropsychiatric disorders, like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Until now, it’s been unclear why that is, but a new study by researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) provides that missing link – a potentially disrupted pathway in the brain.

Children who sustained traumatic brain injuries may experience psychological effects like anxiety, phobias and depression more than a decade later, researcher at Monash University School of Psychological Sciences in Melbourne, Australia. “The study suggests that brain injury is in some way related to longer-term anxiety symptoms, while previously it was thought that brain injury only leads to short-term effects,” said lead author Michelle Albicini.

CTE, a brain degeneration disease, has been found in the brains of deceased NFL Hall of Famers. Here's what you need to know about it.

Maybe his wife is mistaken, or maybe the Patriots kept it under wraps, but if the NFL’s biggest star was unwilling to self-report symptoms it’s a much bigger issue for the league. Plus, the good and the bad of the Eagles signing Blount, and a sneaky good roster in L.A.

Nick Buoniconti was a linebacker in the NFL for 14 years. He estimates that during that time he absorbed a whopping 520,000 hits. Buoniconti recently revealed that he is likely suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE — the scourge that has plagued veteran football players who made a living as human battering rams, and who received the blows as we watched and cheered.

Former NFL players Matt Hasselbeck and Leonard Marshall announced they will both be donating their brains to help researchers to learn more about the ways football affects the brain. The former players have pledged their brains to the Concussion Legacy Foundation and specifically, the foundation will be using the brains to research concussions and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease that affects the brains of those who have suffered repeated blows to the head.

Restricting all forms of activity after a concussion is known as “cocooning.” But now new guidelines, written by an international panel of concussion experts and published this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, question that practice. Instead of cocooning, the new guidelines suggest that most young athletes should be encouraged to start being physically active with a day or two after the injury.

A new study suggests U.S. military members who have mild concussion after blast injuries are experiencing worse outcomes five years later, and that treatment has been largely ineffective. "Most physicians believe that patients will stabilize 6-12 months post-injury, but this study challenges that, showing progression of post-concussive symptoms well after this time frame," said Christine L. Mac Donald, associate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle

From tough-guy captain of the Dolphins’ perfect team to driven force behind the nation’s premier spinal-cord research program, Nick Buoniconti was always in charge, always on top. Now, as his body and mind succumb to the ravages of football, he and his loved ones are left angry, confused and grasping to understand.

By measuring fragments of genetic material in saliva, scientists were able to accurately predict whether a young person's concussion symptoms would last days or weeks.

Dr. David Brody, who is considered one of the world’s foremost researchers on traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases, has been appointed to the faculty of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), a Department of Defense agency, and will direct the university’s Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM).

Investigators at Columbia University in New York found that among college athletes of both sexes who competed in sports such as soccer, football, and basketball, women were 50% more likely to sustain sports-related concussions.

Researchers concluded that, in contrast to the prevailing view that most symptoms of concussion are resolved within three months post-injury, approximately 50 percent of individuals with a single mTBI demonstrate long-term cognitive impairment.

For everything he accomplished on the race track, and there was plenty, nothing carried as much weight as what Dale Earnhardt Jr. did off of it. By being open and honest about his concussions and the impact they had not just on his racing career but his entire life, Earnhardt broadened the discussion about head trauma. Be it other athletes, his fans or people who just recognized his famous last name, there are countless others who are better because of his struggles.

Traumatic brain injuries are hard to diagnose and difficult to treat because of the disease’s symptom diversity that can include anything from depression and anxiety to balance and memory issues. “There are so many forms of comorbidity associated with TBI that it makes for a very complex case presentation,” said Dr. Scott Engle, director of Fort Hood’s Intrepid Spirit Center. Recent data confirms that National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) and its programs are making a difference in helping Soldiers manage depression and post-traumatic stress.

Like air-traffic controllers scrambling to reconnect flights when a major hub goes down, the brain has a remarkable ability to rewire itself after suffering an injury. However, maintaining these new connections between brain regions can strain the brain's resources, which can lead to serious problems later, including Alzheimer's Disease, according to researchers.

In the United Kingdom, about 50 per cent of homeless people have suffered a traumatic brain injury and the vast majority of these injuries occurred before they became homeless, according to a recent report in The Psychologist.

In part three of PBS NewsHour's series War on the Brain, special correspondent Soledad O’Brien reports on how talks to a neuropathologist who is studying the brains of people who suffered traumatic brain injuries and the possible connection to PTSD.

At Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, researchers have created a blood test to detect bleeding in the brain that may have resulted from abusive head trauma — sometimes called shaken baby syndrome.

In a new study conducted by members of both the NeuroTrauma Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan and the School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences at Virginia Tech, researchers studied available head-impact devices and their clinical utility. Among the conclusions were that “head-impact sensors have limited applications to concussion diagnosis but may provide sideline staff with estimates of athlete exposure and real-time data to monitor players.”

It's lunchtime and Charlie Garner sits in a restaurant near his home, looking and sounding like a man on top of the world. But, all of the sudden, it becomes horribly obvious all is not right with Garner. He is in the middle of a sentence when his sandwich drops from his hands to his plate for no discernible reason. His hands also fall to the table and don't move. The person with Garner looks at him with no idea what has just happened or how to react.

There's a Department of Veterans Affairs program to pay family members to be caregivers for disabled veterans. But several caregivers say they're being dropped from the program with no explanation.

Researchers know that the membranes separating the skull from the brain play a key role in absorbing shock and preventing damage caused during a head impact, but the details remain largely mysterious. New research from a team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis takes a closer look at this "suspension system" and the insight it could provide to limit or perhaps prevent TBI.

Scientists are examining blood samples for proteins that have been shown to correlate with concussion and other injuries. One of the most intriguing of these proteins, which could help create better tests for traumatic brain injury, is called neurofilament light — or, as it’s known for short, NFL.

Yellow and red cards are used to discipline players in rugby and now one international federation is to trial a blue card to safeguard their health. The system -- to be launched by the Australian Rugby Union and effective Saturday across grassroots competitions -- gives the referee full authority to dismiss from the pitch any player showing signs of concussion during a match.

Following a brain injury, people can lose their ability to see the left side of the world, but with a special set of lenses developed by researchers at Dalhousie University, patients can train their brains to see both sides of the world. Researchers are developing "prism-goggles" to help patients experiencing hemi-spatial neglect as a result of an injury to the right side of the brain, most commonly from stroke.

New research findings suggest mild blast trauma suffered by military personnel affects portions of the auditory system that have not been extensively studied after injuries occur, and this impairment might be diagnosed using well-established testing methods. The findings raise the possibility that noninvasive auditory tests could identify undiagnosed mild brain injuries earlier.

Surprisingly few people understand the dark realities behind head injuries. In this article, I’m going to shed light on this issue and go over five reasons why suffering a concussion was the hardest experience of my life. In doing so, I’ll hopefully be able to spread awareness towards this issue.