Question:
As someone say, dementia pugilistica or being "punch drunk" can occur inboxers over time (often towards the end of their careers or even afterretirement). Speech becomes slurred, thinking becomes slowed, movementsbecome clumsy, walking can become shuffling. In one study, 37 of 224professional boxers had those symptoms to some degree. In another study,15 retired boxers with dementia puglilistica were autopsied - all of themhad certain changes in the brain - these changes can be seen in 1/2 of allprofessional boxers (active and retired) on head CT. The degree of thesechanges has been found to be correlated to the number of bouts the boxerhas been in.

What's your ideas???

Answer: The problem is that most of the damage can not be seen on a CT. Changesin the cytoskeletal structure that basically screw up the ability of thecell to communicate is something that can only be seen microscopically.

There are confounding problems when it comes to the autopsy studies, I'lladmit. Not least of which is the fact that they usually live to be old(like most of us hope to), and some of the changes that are cited may benothing more than aging (amyloid plauqes). HOWEVER, the significantchanges (NFT in layer 2 since you've obviously read the autopsy reports)is NOT consistent with changes in old age. I'll have to look at thepapers I've got and see what the numbers are, and if they corrospond withthe numbers you have above. If not, we'll have to trade refs. As I said,mine are all at least 5 years old I think.....