Alzheimer Dementia: The phosphorylation characteristics of Tau protein are different in different brain diseases

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease related to repetitive head impacts (RHI) suffered in various contact sports, such as American football, ice hockey, rugby, wrestling and American football (soccer)

Some of the more common clinical features observed in CTE participants include impulsivity, aggression, depression, memory impairment, and executive dysfunction

They used the total number of years participating in contact sports as a proxy for cumulative RHI exposure, and further tested the hypothesis that the total number of years can predict increased phosphorylation of CTE-related tau epitopes

They measured phosphorylated tau epitopes in the dorsolateral frontal cortex.

They found that the levels of hyperphosphorylated tau (p-tau) 202, p-tau231 and p-tau396 in CTE increased significantly

On the contrary, p-tau396 has the closest relationship with the level of amyloid β (Aβ) 1-42 (P <.

The important significance of this study lies in the discovery: In the frontal cortex, p-tau202 is the most up-regulated p-tau species in CTE, and p-tau396 is the most up-regulated in AD