Abstract
There now is little doubt that traumatic brain injuries of any severity can leave permanent changes in neural tissue and lead to long-term brain damage. However, many questions remain over the relationship between brain injury and the development of a chronic progressive neurodegenerative process.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is most commonly associated with repeated mild brain injury, but this is a neuropathologically defined concept whose neurobiological and clinical significance remains to be elucidated. Nevertheless, epidemiological studies suggest that a history of brain injury is associated with an increased risk of clinical diagnosis of various neurodegenerative diseases later in life.
At the same time, TBI does not seem to stand out significantly above other modifiable risk factors. This review aims to describe the current state of this field of neuroscience