In certain types of brain injury such as diffuse axonal injury, spectrin is irreversibly cleaved by the proteolytic enzyme calpain, destroying the cytoskeleton.[2] Spectrin cleavage causes the membrane to form blebs and ultimately to be degraded, usually leading to the death of the cell.[3] Spectrin subunits may also be cleaved by caspase family enzymes, and calpain and caspase produce different spectrin breakdown products which can be detected by western blotting with appropriate antibodies.