Together, we can make a breakthrough

Can we detect CTE in the blood?

Help us answer this question!

*If you participated in the HITSS study please reach out to the study team bankcte@bu.edu

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a progressive brain disease that cannot yet be diagnosed in the living. It can only be diagnosed after death through an examination of the brain.

Those who have played contact and collision sports, or have served in the military are at risk of developing CTE from exposure to repetitive head impacts.

The Boston University CTE Center and UNITE Brain Bank want to see if blood can be used to detect CTE. Once CTE can be diagnosed in life, then researchers can explore treatments, and hopefully a cure.

You can play a role in protecting brain health by enrolling in the BANK CTE Study. Participants will receive a $100 gift card upon completion.

Hear From Drs. Alosco and Stein!

*If you participated in the HITSS study please reach out to the study team: bankcte@bu.edu

What is BANK CTE?

Other research studies have focused on using invasive and expensive brain imaging techniques to detect CTE.

But … What if we could detect CTE through a simple blood draw?

BANK CTE is a ground-breaking research study from the Boston University CTE Center that aims to identify plasma biomarkers unique to CTE. 

Why is BANK CTE important?

Each year, millions of people are exposed to repetitive head impacts through contact sports, military service, and physical violence. These impacts can increase your risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias including CTE. While it is now possible to detect Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia using proteins in the blood, options for detecting CTE are limited and inaccessible. There is an urgent need to develop a test to diagnose CTE in life. Your participation in BANK CTE can get us closer to this goal, and help future athletes and warfighters like yourself!

You can help protect the brain health of future athletes and warfighters

Ready to team up with BU for this important study?

If you meet the following criteria you may be eligible to participate:

  1. You are at least 40 years old 

  2. You played an organized contact or collision sport for at least 5 years, including but not limited to at least two years at the high school or higher level

  3. And/or served in the military

  4. OR, you may be eligible, as a control, if you have NOT sustained any type of repeated hits to the head

  5. You agree to brain donation

Participants who complete all requirements will receive a $100 gift card

The 3 actions required to complete participation are

Brain Donation Pledge

Pledge to donate your brain and sign the BANK CTE brain donation pledge. Please notify your family you have pledged to donate your brain to research.

Single Blood Draw

You can schedule a single blood draw, at no cost to you, at a local Quest lab of your choosing.

Online Survey

This fully online survey includes questions about sports participation, repetitive head impacts, concussion history, and medical history. It also includes computerized brain games plus behavior and mood questionnaires. The entire survey should take no more than 2 hours.

Click on each image to learn more!

Your involvement is private and protected

All data gathered in the study will be handled with maximal attention to participant confidentiality and privacy. Research data generated by this study will be kept in locked files or will be encrypted and stored on secure servers by the investigators.

Your information will not have any personal identifiers when used in the study outcome.

Please note, at this time, we do not provide participants with individual results from the study. The goal of BANK CTE is to find methods that will one day be utilized for diagnosing CTE during life.

Boston University is the Leader in Brain Research

The groundbreaking BANK CTE study is yet another effort from BU to change the way the world sees brain health

The UNITE Brain Bank at Boston University is the largest tissue repository in the world focused on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and CTE. The UNITE Brain Bank research team conducts high-impact, innovative research on CTE, and other long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes, military personnel, and first responders. The brain bank contains more than 1,400 brains, including over 700 brains that have been diagnosed with CTE.

Dr. McKee and her team of neuropathologists and other investigators have published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and studies focused on CTE in highly regarded journals and written over 30 grants to support the daily operations of the brain bank.

The research being done through BU CTE Center has already started to create a safer future for brain health.

Meet our lead investigators

“One brain can serve the needs of hundreds of studies... our ultimate goal is to correlate what we see in the blood with what we find in the brain,”

-Michael Alosco, PhD

Co-Primary Investigator

  • Thor Stein, MD, PhD

    Co-Primary Investigator

  • Rachel Nosheny, PhD

    Co-Investigator

  • William Cole- French

    Participant Liason

    CONTACT

  • Kelsey Goostrey, MPH

    Project Manager

  • Matthew Roebuck

    Recruitment Coordinator

  • Research Specialist

  • PhD Candidate, Behavioral Neuroscience

  • Research Assitant

  • Research Assistant

  • Research Program Manager - UNITE Brain Bank

  • Research Assistant

  • Project Lead - BEDAC

  • Project Manager - BEDAC

  • Director - Data Management and Biostatistics Core of BU ADC & CTE Center

  • Assistant Professor - Department of Clinical Research and Leadership at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Science

  • Professor Emeritus, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Neuology - UCSF

  • Program Director, Brain Health Registry (UCSF)

  • Project Manger, HITSS-Brain Health Registry

  • Engineering Director, Brain Health Registry

  • Co-Founder and CEO, Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF)

  • Director of International Programs, CLF

  • Programs and Research Coordinator, CLF

*If you participated in the HITSS study please contact the study team: bankcte@bu.edu