A wide variety of tests can be used to determine if a patient has brain
injury, and PET (positron emission tomography) is one of them. PET scanning
technology relies on the fact that the brain stores glucose, and by tagging the
glucose inside the brain with a radioactive tracer, the PET scanner can
identify the areas of the brain where glucose is underutilized.
With PET scans
being a useful imaging tool for brain injuries, experts now believe that it can
be an indispensable tool in monitoring the brains of NFL players and athletes
in other contact sports. Recently, scientists discovered that they can use PET
scans to look for brain injury and repair markers in the brains of active and
retired NFL players.
According to Jennifer Coughlin, assistant professor of psychiatry and
behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, the scientists believe that in
PET scans, they have “a useful tool to monitor the brains of NFL players and
athletes in other contact sports.”
Coughlin, along with her fellow researchers, published a research that
used PET scan to measure translocator protein (TSPO), a biomarker of brain
injury that was visible through PET scans. The research involved 23 PET imaging
data from 11 men who had never had concussion and 12 NFL players, both active
and retired. By tracking TSPO, Coughlin believes that they can monitor if the
brain is healing from an injury or not.
Coughlin says that it is important to track a brain injury because
repeated concussions among athletes have the potential to lead to chronic
traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition associated with poor memory,
confusion, and dementia.
Researchers like Coughlin are constantly looking for better techniques
to observe the living brain, along with its functions and conditions. Thanks to
PET scans, clinicians can monitor the development of CTE, whereas before the
condition could only be diagnosed at autopsy.
Can PET scans track
concussion injuries in NFL players?, Futurity.org
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