Clinical Trials

Inclusion Criteria:

• All participants must be 50 years or older, male, and English as primary language. Participants must agree to provide name and contact information of a study partner who will complete questionnaires regarding participant’s mood, behavior, thinking and cognitive function should the participant enroll in the study. All legacy (retention) participants (who are male and now 50 years or older) will be eligible for enrollment into this protocol given our goal is to longitudinally follow the original cohort. Specific inclusion criteria by group include:
  • Former Football (n=225) will include those retained from DIAGNOSE-I (n=150) and newly recruited (n=75). Criteria will include
    • Played college or professional football i. Former college football players must have played more than 6 years of football including 3 or more years at the college level. They must not have played organized football or other contact sports following college.
    • Former professional football players must have played 12 or more years of total football including 3 or more years in college and 4 or more seasons professionally.
  • Control (n=75) will include those retained from DIAGNOSE-I (n=50) and newly recruited (n=25). Inclusion criteria for CTL include:
    • Asymptomatic at screening
    • Never been diagnosed with, or treated for, any of the following: depression, manic depressive or bipolar disorder, anxiety, or other psychiatric or mental health problems
    • No known traumatic brain injury (TBI) and/or moderate/severe concussion (severity determined on phone screening).
    • No history of RHI including participation in contact and collision sports (i.e., football, ice hockey, rugby, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, boxing gymnastics, martial arts, kickboxing), or military service (refers to active combat experience or combat training involving exposure to IED blasts or combatant stick training). These are examples and there might be instances of other RHI sources that could be exclusionary as determined by investigators.
    • BMI of 24 or higher to be similar in body habitus to former professional and college football players.
    • Must have at least 2 years of post-secondary education at a 4-year accredited college or university or have an associate’s degree if they did not attend a 4-year accredited college or university.
  • AD-CI (n=50) will come from the local ADRCs where Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) and amyloid biomarker status are known for most participants being followed annually. Inclusion criteria include:
    • CDR of 0.5-1.0
    • Positive amyloid PET or CSF AD biomarker within 12 months of study visit (done as part of their participation in the local ADRCs and/or clinical care).
    • No history of RHI including participation in contact and collision sports (i.e., football, ice hockey, rugby, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, boxing gymnastics, martial arts, kickboxing), or military service (refers to active combat experience or combat training involving exposure to IED blasts or combatant stick training). These are examples and there might be instances of other RHI sources that could be exclusionary as determined by investigators.
    • BMI of 24 or higher to be similar in body habitus to former professional and college football players. e. No prior anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody treatments or therapeutic trials targeting amyloid or tau prior to initiating study
  • Tracer comparison sub-sample: 20 professional football players from DIAGNOSE-I will have FTP and MK-6240 tau PET (done at the same site, scanner). We will select the 20 participants at highest risk for having CTE pathology based on the following:
    • 60+ years old to increase likelihood of meaningful pathology
    • Must have played professionally
    • Must have dementia as defined by a CDR of 1.0
    • Participant was amyloid PET negative at the baseline DIAGNOSE-I evaluation to rule out potential confounding from AD

Exclusion Criteria:

• For newly recruited, those individuals who meet any of the following criteria are not eligible for enrollment as study participants. All of the below will be assessed on a case-by-case basis by the site PI based on clinical severity. As mentioned above, all retention participants met the below criteria at their baseline visit as part of DIAGNOSE-I (2015-2020) and will not be excluded now due to interim changes unless they are physically unable to complete study procedures due to one of the reasons below. In the event that there are retention participants who are unable to complete the protocol for physical or cognitive reasons and cannot travel to one of the sites, we will perform telephone/zoom assessments and remote surveys to keep them engaged particularly since many are brain donors.
  • Unstable medical conditions that confound our ability to diagnose neurodegenerative disease accurately (e.g., active cancer with recent chemotherapy or radiation treatments, unstable heart disease particularly if oxygen dependent, kidney disease requiring dialysis)
  • Neurological conditions that confound our ability to diagnose neurodegenerative disease accurately (e.g., acute clinical stroke, severe traumatic brain injury with ongoing symptoms [post-football for football players])
  • Serious mental Illnesses that confound our ability to diagnose neurodegenerative disease accurately (e.g., active psychosis)
  • Inability to fulfill research protocol requirements due to physical, visual, or hearing impairment
  • English is not primary language
  • Unable to travel to 1 of the five study sites to participate
  • Lack of an adequate informant to be available in-person or by telephone for each annual research evaluation. Informant must be 18 years or older, speaks/visits with the participant at least 1X per week for a minimum of 6 months, agree to complete questionnaires about participant, able to travel to study visit if determined it is needed, and is knowledgeable regarding changes to the participant’s cognition, mood and behavior
  • Lack of capacity to provide informed consent (IC) or does not have a legal authorized representative or guardian who can provide surrogate IC
  • Unwilling to attempt to have an MRI
  • If willing to complete MRI, contraindications to 3T MRI (e.g., pacemaker, select aneurismal clip, artificial heart valve, select ear implants, select stents incompatible with 3T MRI, metal fragments or foreign objects in the eyes, skin or body, etc.)
• For all participants (retention and expansion), the following will be exclusionary for participating in PET scan activities:
  • Medical radiation exposure will be assessed by the study physician. If the candidate participant has had more than one research nuclear medicine study in the prior 12 months, study inclusion will require joint PI approval.
  • Investigational agents are prohibited 30 days prior to entry
  • Initiated medication (investigational or for clinical care) against tau or amyloid proteins prior to their baseline study visit
  • History of a relevant severe drug allergy or hypersensitivity
  • Inability to urinate
  • Any serious illness that, in the study physician’s opinion could interfere with the completion of the PET scans or post a potential safety risk

Note: Other protocol defined Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria may apply.

Eligibility last updated 10/30/2024. Questions regarding updates should be directed to the study team contact.