New Scan May Enable Better Diagnosis, Treatment for Athletes' Brain Damage

JEFFREY BROWN: Next: how brain scans may be able to help identify serious head injuries to living and retired football players and to the rest of us.

In less than two weeks, football fans will gather for the country's biggest sporting event, Super Bowl Sunday. But even as pro football is drawing strong ratings, there are growing concerns about the long-term effects of concussions and other hits to the head.

Today, researchers in California and Illinois reported they can identify protein deposits in the brains of living players that could help identify those at risk of developing an injury known as CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The study done by Gary Small of UCLA and others is quite small. Five former players, all retired and between the ages of 45 and 73, were given a compound that showed a buildup of a protein known as tau in the brain.

DR. GARY SMALL, UCLA: We see, here's the cortex and the deeper brain structures.

JEFFREY BROWN: Dr. Small is the lead author of the new paper published in "The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry."

GARY SMALL: This is the first time we have been able to image in living football players protein deposits that we have observed in people with Alzheimer's disease.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Until now, CTE has only been identified postmortem in autopsies by looking at cross-sections of the brain.

Wayne Clark, a backup quarterback with the San Diego Chargers in the '70s, is one of the players who participated. He has mild memory loss.

WAYNE CLARK, former National Football League player: When I first saw the scan, I thought, whoa, that looks pretty extensive. I know recalling names which I recall used to be pretty easy for me and so forth. And now I go through stages where I think, ooh, how come I can't remember that? And I am -- always wondered, are these age-related or are they concussion-related?

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New Scan May Enable Better Diagnosis, Treatment for Athletes' Brain Damage