Congratulations Drs. Breton M Asken, and Stefan Prokop on the publicaiton of “Substantia(l) Impacts of Contact Sport Play and Parkinsonism,” which appears in the July issue of JAMA Neurology.
Head trauma is a well-established risk factor for neurodegenerative disease. Population-based and brain bank study comparisons of people with and without a prior traumatic brain injury (TBI) have highlighted associations with developing Lewy body (LB) disease or parkinsonism later in life.1-3 In the last 15 years, more attention has returned to repetitive head impacts (RHI) sustained most commonly through contact and collision sport participation. In this issue of JAMA Neurology, Adams and colleagues4 demonstrate a complex but compelling interplay between RHI, LB disease, and parkinsonism that may provide answers to century-old questions.