Following last years groundbreaking admission by the US National Institute of Health that CTE is in fact ’caused’ by repeated brain rattling another leading medical institution, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia, have just published a Position Statement making the same blunt admission.
In short the RCPA note that repeated brain rattling, particularly from combat and collision sports, indeed causes the degenerative brain disease. They note that just because more research in the field is needed is no reason to deny this basic fact. Further they note that a call to action is needed including better education and for stakeholders in sport to find ways to reduce cumulative brain trauma to athletes.
The full position statement can be found here.
Some of the highlights are as follows:
CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that occurs in individuals that have a history of
exposure to repetitive traumatic brain injury, usually in the context of repetitive head impacts
encountered with participation in contact or combat sports. Both concussion and nonconcussive brain injuries are implicated in CTE risk, with the evidence to date indicating that
cumulative exposure to non-concussive brain injury is more important than diagnosed
concussions in determining CTE risk
The RCPA explicitly endorses the following Committee View from the 2023 Australian
Senate Inquiry into concussion and repeated head impacts in contact sport [6]:
“There is clear evidence of a causal link between repeated head
trauma and concussions and subsequent neurodegenerative diseases
such as CTE. While important research questions remain regarding
the degree of causation and the nature of long-term impacts, these
questions should not be used to undermine the fundamental nature of
that link.”
There is an urgent need for evidence-based strategies to prevent CTE, particularly
for children and adolescents. RCPA calls for the development of CTE prevention/risk
minimisation protocols for all contact and combat sports.
A CTE prevention protocol guide has recently been released by a global coalition of
CTE experts [8] and this outlines simple measures that can be taken to reduce CTE
risk by reducing cumulative exposure to head injury.
Combat Sports Law 