News & Headlines

The largest-ever study of CTE has found a new link between playing contact sports, CTE, and developing Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms. The Boston University study of 481 dead athletes reveals that most people with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) developed parkinsonism, and CTE appears to be driving the parkinsonism symptoms in most cases.

Despite ongoing advocacy and education about the risks of concussions from organizations like the Sport Information Resource Center, Hockey Canada, and legislation like Rowan's Law, many young athletes still hesitate, or even neglect, to disclose symptoms when they are hurt.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announces a bill called the Blast Overpressure Safety Act to address traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The bill aims to help veterans and active duty service members who endure issues of traumatic brain injuries with explosions and firing weapons.

The project aims to shed light on how concussions are impacting women and girls, who have historically been left behind in sports injuries studies.

Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) will share its innovative approaches to addressing suicide risk factors at the nation's top conference dedicated to suicide prevention among military personnel and veterans. The 2024 VA/DoD Suicide Prevention Conference is hosted by the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense. This year's conference theme is Reimagining Suicide Prevention: Evolving and Innovating to Meet Diverse Needs. 

A new study by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare, reveals insights that could lead to new treatments for a serious brain bleeding condition that’s common in newborns with very low birth weight. The findings are published in Brain.

Two women who endured decades of intimate partner violence including dozens of brutal assaults and head injuries before they died have been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy — the first cases of CTE in victims of domestic violence in Australia and two of just a handful globally. The grim findings, published today in the journal Acta Neuropathologica, were made by a group of pathologists from several states and territories who teamed up to understand whether the degenerative brain disease found mostly in deceased male football players and boxers is also prevalent among abused women with histories of repetitive head injury.

Canadian doctors and brain injury experts believe Canadian Football League players should be encouraged to use Guardian Caps whenever they have the opportunity, but say the technology does not mitigate the risk of concussion. The CFL announced on May 15 that players will be allowed to wear Guardian Caps — protective soft-shell helmet covers — during games this season as part of a new series of health-and-safety measures. The league also mandated mouthguards, becoming the first professional league in North America to do so.

With post-traumatic stress disorder among college students doubling between 2017 and 2022, according to a recent New York Times article, one health director at an upstate university is doling out advice for parents. Ariel Rios, executive director for the Health and Wellness Center at Utica University, said parents should talk with their kids as they come home for the summer. 

Long COVID is a brutal illness without a known mechanism or cure. Far from being psychosomatic in nature, a new study adds weight to the idea that this misunderstood disease is very much biological.

In a new study, Oregon Health & Science University researchers find that women veterans who had recently attempted suicide were more likely than men to feel social rejection and betrayed by military institutions. They also reported feeling less independent and compassionate toward themselves. The findings, recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, suggest that women veterans may be at higher risk of repeat suicide attempts.

Did you know that research has showed that women sustain more frequent and more severe head and brain injuries in sports, including horse riders, than their male counterparts? Ongoing research is evidencing that women’s cervical spine and neck strength have a considerable impact on the outcome of a brain injury, due to the way that the head moves during an accident, a fall or a collision. This results in the brain moving differently, and consequently impacting the level of damage at a neuronal level. So if you fall off your horse or are kicked in the head, be aware that due to the difference in neck strength, there could potentially be a head injury risk.