University Of Pittsburgh Launches National Sports Brain Bank

The University of Pittsburgh is creating a National Sports Brain Bank (NSBB) in order to study the neurological consequences associated with participating in an array of contact sports.

The NSBB will conduct long-term observational studies and serve as a brain donation registry for former professional and amateur athletes who participated in contact sports such as football, soccer, boxing, wrestling, ice hockey and may have experienced concussions or mild traumatic brain injury events during their careers. This exposure is known to be associated with an increased risk of cognitive and psychiatric syndromes later in life and the development of a neurodegenerative disease called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

The NSBB will add to the body of knowledge about CTE, much of which has come over recent years from research at the CTE Center at Boston University. Specifically, its goals are to:

• Increase our knowledge of CTE, including its etiology, symptoms and frequency;
• Obtain provisional consent for brain donations.
• Share data and tissue samples with other researchers for further studies into CTE risk and resilience factors and molecular mechanisms of CTE.
• Collaborate with other neuropathologists to learn more about the histopathology and diagnostic criteria of CTE and other neurodegenerative processes following traumatic brain injury.

The NSBB will be led by Julia Kofler, director of the Division of Neuropathology at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine and co-director of the University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. According to the university’s announcement, Kofler and her team “will annually evaluate participants over the course of their lives and perform detailed neuropathological examinations of their brains after death, looking for evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Alzheimer’s disease, ALS and other neurodegenerative disease processes.”

Kofler explained that the mission of the NSBB was to create a richly studied cohort of participants with follow-up brain autopsies, the information from which would be shared with their families as well as with other clinicians. “The data and tissue samples also will be made widely available to the research community for studies into epidemiology, risk factors and mechanisms of trauma-associated neurodegenerative diseases,” Kofler said in the university’s news release.

She added, “at the same time as concern hovers around the safety of some contact sports, there is a scarcity of brain tissue available to study the brains of individuals who have experienced such traumatic brain injury events. The NSBB registry and brain tissue resource is a huge step in trying to close this gap.”

The new bank will serve as a donation registry for former contact sports athletes. According to the university’s announcement, among the first athletes to pledge their participation were NFL Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis and former Steelers running back Merril Hoge. They were joined by pledges from two nationally recognized neurosurgeons who played Division I contact sports: Joseph Maroon, a Pitt neurosurgeon, and Regis Haid, past president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

The NSBB will build upon the collection of more than 2,000 brain specimens in the already-established neurodegenerative brain bank in the Division of Neuropathology, which can be utilized for comparative analyses.

The Chuck Noll Foundation provided a gift of $125,000 to help launch the NSBB. Chuck Noll was the Hall of Fame coach who led the Pittsburgh Steelers t0 four Super Bowl wins in six years. Noll was a pioneer in advocating for a better understanding of brain injury and healing, particularly concerning when it was safe for players who had sustained concussions to return to competition.

The Noll Foundation’s gift was matched by a gift from the Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Richard King Mellon Foundation also awarded $500,000 to support the new brain bank.

“I am pleased that the Chuck Noll Foundation is able to provide this grant to support the research being conducted by the National Sports Brain Bank at the University of Pittsburgh,” said Arthur J. Rooney II, chair of the Chuck Noll Foundation board of directors. “This is one of several grants made by the Noll Foundation to the University, including research into biomarkers and precision treatment of concussions.”