Medical researchers are examining the brains of deceased domestic violence victims to understand Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in female athletes. Photo / 123rf
Medical researchers are examining the brains of deceased domestic violence victims to understand Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in female athletes. Photo / 123rf
WARNING: This story discusses disturbing content
Medical researchers are examining the brains of deceased domestic violence victims to understand Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in female athletes.
The neurological condition linked to repeated head trauma has been widely discussed in recent years as a growing number of deceased male athletes have been diagnosed with CTE after death.
Dr Helen Murray, one of New Zealand’s top neuroscientists, told the Herald that the discussion in women’s sport has been limited due to the lack of female athletes’ brains available for study.
“What we know about CTE in women is honestly not a lot.
“All of the work is done almost exclusively on men. And it’s not the fault of the researchers, it’s just mostly because the brains that people have available to look at from professional athletes are traditionally from male professional athletes because professional women’s sport is still an evolving thing.”
Dr Helen Murray: 'What we know about CTE in women is honestly not a lot'. Photo / Michael Craig
CTE is a pathology diagnosis based on what’s seen in the brain tissue, rather than the symptoms someone experiences. It’s an illness that can only be diagnosed after death and causes irritability, impulsivity, depression and memory decline.
Australian Rules footballer Heather Anderson was the first female to be diagnosed with the condition after she took her own life in 2022, aged 28.
Murray said a hypothesis researchers are considering to help gain a better understanding of CTE in female athletes, is observing the condition in women who have experienced domestic violence.
“One area where women are over-represented is in domestic violence — where you’ve got potentially years and years of repeated head impacts, and often very severe ones. That’s one space where we are seeing CTE in women.”
Heather Anderson. Photo / Getty Images
This research can apply to sports, as the pathology in the brain appears similar regardless of whether the head injury came from a sporting context or a violent assault, Murray explained.
“Seeing the same patterns of pathology in the brain, irrespective of where the head injury source came from, whether it was from a sporting context or a violence or assault context, it’s the same pathology.
“From that sense, we think it’s probably translatable, although it’s all kind of hypothesis. We don’t actually have the data; no one’s sat down and gone, ‘OK, this compared to this is exactly the same thing,’ but it does look that way.”
Murray, who plays for New Zealand’s national ice hockey team, the Ice Fernz, said researchers have been forced to explore various avenues to study CTE in female athletes as professional women’s contact sports have barely been around longer than 20 years.
“We’re studying the brains now of people who played their sports in the 60s, 70s, and 80s and back then, women just weren’t playing professional sport. It wasn’t really an option for us back then.
Former All Black Carl Hayman was diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) at the age of 41. Photo / Photosport
“There is an inequality in the research in the sense that we just don’t have access to [female brains to study]. It’s not necessarily inequality because people don’t want to study it, it’s just that it’s not necessarily available for us to study right now.
“But then you can also look at it from the broader context of medical literature, and obviously, women have been understudied in nearly every field you can think of, so maybe that does play into [why it’s not been studied].
“What we are learning from men is that this is something caused by exposure to repeated impacts. Why do we have to wait to find CTE in women before we just act on what we know are some of the underlying causes?
“We just know a lot more about CTE in men but that doesn’t mean [CTE] is not going to happen in a woman.”
Murray said research suggests female athletes could also be more susceptible to getting CTE given the “body of literature” around women having a greater risk for concussion.
She said research shows women have this greater risk because of the biological difference of their slower recovery and the biomechanics of weaker neck strength.
The role of hormones in the brain and body, and the fact women are relatively new to contact sports in the professional sense, also come into play.
“There are lots of things that make us think that women have worse outcomes with concussions but we don’t have the data on that repeated long-term head injury exposure on women,” Murray said.
“As women’s sport grows and develops, it’s such an opportunity for us to learn.”
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111
Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Feverpodcast, and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.
