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" A single head injury may cause brain changes linked with dementia to occur years after the event, new research suggests. Scientists at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow worked with a team at the University of Pennsylvania in the US to investigate the issue. The researchers looked at 39 brains from deceased patients who had sustained a head injury in the previous 47 years, as well as brains from patients who had never injured their head. They found that injury survivors were more likely to have brain changes associated with Alzheimer&amp;#039;s disease, including more tau-positive neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid-beta plaques. Overall, around one in three head injury survivors had tangles similar to those found in neurodegenerative diseases. Co-senior author Dr Willie Stewart, consultant neuropathologist at the Southern General Hospital, described the findings in the journal Brain Pathology as &amp;#039;exciting&amp;#039;. He said: &amp;#039;What we have found, quite remarkably, is that a proportion of patients with a single head injury had widespread and large amounts of markers in their brains which are normally only seen in the very elderly or in patients with Alzheimer&amp;#039;s disease. &amp;#039;This study may be significant in terms of understanding dementia.&amp;#039; The research comes just days after scientists at the University of California reported a potential link between head injuries in US veterans and an elevated risk of dementia. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/conditions/brain-and-nervous-system/news/a21263/single-head-injury-may-lead-to-dementia-in-later-life/>