CTE: More than just head trauma, suggests new study

Researchers use single-cell genome sequencing to show DNA damage similar to Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of patients with CTE

Boston Children's Hospital

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Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – most often found in athletes playing contact sports – is known to share similarities with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), namely the buildup of a protein called tau in the brain. New research published today in Science finds even more commonalities between the two at the genetic level, showing CTE (like AD) is linked to damage to the genome and not just caused by repeated head impact (RHI).

The research team, a collaboration between Boston Children’s Hospital, Mass General Brigham, and Boston University, used single-cell genomic sequencing to identify somatic genetic mutations (changes in DNA that occurs after conception and are not hereditary).  They analyzed hundreds of neurons from the prefrontal cortex of 15 individuals diagnosed with CTE postmortem and 4 individuals with RHI but without CTE and compared their findings with 19 neurotypical controls and 7 individuals with AD.

The team found neurons from brain samples with CTE had specific abnormal patterns of somatic genome damage that closely resemble those seen in AD. Notably, brain samples that displayed signs of RHI without CTE didn’t have these changes. They also observed that those with CTE showed signs of damage equivalent to 100+ years of excess aging.

“Our results suggest that CTE develops through some process in addition to head trauma,” said Chris Walsh, MD, PhD, Chief of the Division of Genetics and Genomics and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Boston Children’s and co-corresponding author of the study. “We suspect it involves immune activation in a way similar to Alzheimer’s disease, happening years after trauma.”

RHI most often occurs during contact sports such as American football, hockey, or rugby or during military service. CTE has been found postmortem in the brains of teenagers and young adults playing amateur sports, as well as in older professional athletes. Recent research from co-corresponding author Ann McKee, MD, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Pathology at Boston University and director of BU’s CTE Center, found RHI causes brain damage in young people even before CTE. Their study, published last month in Nature, suggested that RHI-related brain injury occurs before the onset of tau deposition as CTE. This new research published today adds on to this growing evidence base.

“One of the most significant aspects of our work is the introduction of a new, single-cell genome approach to CTE,” said co-corresponding author Michael Miller, MD, PhD, a neuropathologist and principal investigator in the Mass General Brigham Department of Pathology. “Our study provides further evidence that CTE is a bona fide neurodegenerative disease defined by its unique neuropathological features.”

Given the shared mechanisms found between CTE and AD, there could be promise in identifying shared novel targets for these two neurodegenerative diseases.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adu1351 

Article Title

Diverse somatic genomic alterations in single neurons in chronic traumatic encephalopathy

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2025

 

Myanmar fault had ideal geometry to produce 2025 supershear earthquake

UCLA-led research reveals how fault structure and rock contrasts enabled one of the fastest continental ruptures ever observed

University of California - Los Angeles

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A UCLA-led team of scientists has uncovered how the devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar in March 2025 produced one of the longest and fastest-moving ruptures ever recorded on land.

The study, published in Science, shows that the earthquake ruptured about 530 kilometers of the Sagaing Fault, with a 450-kilometer segment racing faster than the speed of seismic shear waves—a rare phenomenon known as a supershear rupture. These “Mach-like” ruptures generate shock waves that can greatly amplify ground shaking and damage.

“Supershear earthquakes are like breaking the sound barrier, but in rock,” said Lingsen Meng, a professor of geophysics in UCLA’s department of earth, planetary, and space sciences and senior author of the study. “They create seismic shock fronts that can double the intensity of shaking, even hundreds of kilometers away.”

Supershear quakes are caused when faults beneath the surface rupture faster than shear waves — the seismic waves that shake the ground back and forth — can move through rock. The effect corrals energy that is then released violently; the effect can be compared to a sonic boom. Supershear earthquakes can therefore produce more shaking, and are potentially more destructive, than other earthquakes of the same magnitude.

Using an integrated approach that combined global seismic data, satellite radar (InSAR), and optical imagery, the researchers reconstructed the Myanmar rupture in unprecedented detail. The results show that the southern branch of the Sagaing Fault experienced sustained supershear speeds of up to five kilometers per second, while the northern branch propagated more slowly.

The team attributes the extreme speed of the rupture to several key geological factors: a straight and smooth fault geometry, long-term stress accumulation since the last major earthquake in 1839, and contrasting rock properties across the fault interface. Together, these conditions created an ideal setting for the rupture to accelerate and maintain supershear velocities over hundreds of kilometers.

The earthquake caused widespread destruction across central Myanmar, including building collapses and soil liquefaction visible from space. Because field surveys were limited by ongoing civil conflict, the researchers used satellite-based “damage proxy maps” to remotely assess the extent of the devastation.

“This event reminds us that even well-studied continental faults can behave in unexpected and dangerous ways,” Meng said. “Understanding the physical conditions that allow a rupture to reach these speeds will help us better estimate future earthquake hazards—especially in fault systems near major cities.”

The research highlights the need to re-evaluate seismic risks in other continental regions with similar fault geometries, such as parts of Asia and California, where long linear faults and contrasting rock layers coexist.

UCLA doctoral student Liuwei Xu led the seismic imaging analysis. Coauthors include researchers from Nanjing University, Central South University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and UC Santa Barbara.

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Journal

Science

 

Supershear rupture sustained in thick fault zone during 2025 Mandalay earthquake, study in research package shows

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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A massive March 2025 earthquake in Myanmar tore through nearly 500 kilometers of the Sagaing Fault at extremely high speeds. In a new study – part of a package of four research articles on seismic activity in Myanmar – researchers show that an unusually thick, low-velocity fault zone acted like a high-speed corridor, driving one of the fastest and longest continental ruptures ever recorded. The largest earthquakes that occur within continental crusts can rupture faults extending for hundreds of kilometers and pose significant seismic threats.  Many of these powerful events evolve into supershear ruptures – earthquakes in which the rupture front moves faster than the speed at which shear waves travel through the crust, making them especially powerful. This behavior often occurs on simple, straight faults like the San Andreas, North Anatolian, and Sagaing faults, which let energy concentrate instead of dispersing. During such quakes, parts of the crust around the fault weaken, forming damage zones that can affect how future earthquakes unfold. However, the relationship between fault zones and major strike-slip ruptures, and their influence on long-lasting supershear events, remains poorly understood.

 

According to Shengji Wei and colleagues, the March 28, 2025, magnitude 7.8 Mandalay earthquake in Myanmar offers new insight into these seismic dynamics. The Mandalay quake struck along the Sagaing Fault, breaking a 250-kilometer section that hadn’t ruptured in over a century, and produced a surface rupture exceeding 450 kilometers that reached supershear speeds. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combined satellite geodesy, broadband seismic data, receiver function imaging, and numerical simulations, Wei et al. reconstructed the earthquake’s 3D surface deformation, slip distribution, and rupture dynamics. They discovered that the rupture started in both directions from the epicenter and transitioned to supershear speeds (~5.3 km/s) about 100 kilometers to the south. This transition occurred along a roughly 2-kilometer-thick low-velocity fault zone, where shear-wave speeds were reduced by about 45%, coinciding with a shift in fault shape and structure. Wei et al. argue that it is these factors likely enabled the initiation and continuation of the supershear rupture and suggest that these events are more likely to occur along wide, simple strike-slip faults that have evolved through repeated seismic activity. Such insights could improve hazard assessments for major continental faults, such as California’s San Andreas and Türkiye’s North Anatolian faults, where similar conditions exist.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adz2101 

Article Title

Supershear rupture sustained through a thick fault zone in the 2025 Mw 7.8 Mandalay earthquake

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2025

 

New funding for health economics research on substance use disorder treatments

Weill Cornell Medicine

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A team led by Weill Cornell Medicine and University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine investigators has been awarded a five-year, $4 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for health economics research. The team will study the economics of substance use disorder treatments and overdose prevention strategies for individuals who are incarcerated or otherwise involved in the United States’ criminal legal system.

Interventions for people with substance use disorders are often inadequate in the criminal-legal system. That can lead to other health and behavioral problems, including overdose when incarcerated individuals are released to their communities. Health economics researchers in this area evaluate and compare the economic value of available interventions in the many different criminal-legal settings.

The new grant will support the establishment of a health economics research facility called the Criminal-Legal Economic Analysis & Resource (CLEAR) Center, within a larger research program known as the Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network. The latter helps develop and test strategies for substance-use-disorder care within the criminal legal system. It has been supported by NIDA since 2019, and now in its second phase of funding is known as JCOIN-II.

“The CLEAR Center will not only generate rigorous economic evidence regarding which care strategies deliver the greatest value, but also develop tools and resources that administrators and policymakers can use to identify strategic and sustainable investments,” said CLEAR Center co-principal investigator Dr. Sean Murphy, professor in the department of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The other co-principal investigator is Dr. Kathryn McCollister, professor and interim chair of the department of public health sciences at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

The U.S. criminal-legal system comprises police stations, courts, jails, prisons, halfway houses and other community supervision contexts, each of which has its own budgetary, staffing and other constraints. Traditionally, Dr. Murphy said, individuals with substance use disorder who entered this system would be deprived of the drugs they had been using—forcing untreated withdrawal—and given little or no further assistance when released. The challenge for initiatives such as JCOIN has been to find ways to integrate effective, evidence-based care at every level of this multifarious and notoriously budget-limited system.

“Ideally we want to get people on treatment as soon as they are incarcerated, and link them to evidence-based care immediately upon release—when the risk of overdose and other adverse outcomes is typically highest,” Dr. Murphy said.

Drs. Murphy and McCollister and their colleagues at the CLEAR Center will provide health economics support for JCOIN-II in the form of cost-effectiveness analyses of clinical trials of substance use disorder interventions, advice on trial designs, creation of cost-benefit and budget-impact calculators for decision makers and treatment providers, and general consultation and technical assistance.

The two researchers received the new grant in part because of their extensive experience with substance use disorder-related health economics research. Drs. Murphy and McCollister are longtime collaborators through CHERISH – a large, NIDA-funded health economics center of excellence that conducts research and provides resources to inform care for the interrelated epidemics of substance use disorder and HIV and hepatitis C virus infection. Dr. Murphy is co-director of CHERISH, along with Dr. Bruce Schackman, the Saul P. Steinberg Distinguished Professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. McCollister is director of the CHERISH Methodology Core. CHERISH’s grant was renewed in August for a total of $10.9 million over five years.

US National summit of experts charts unprecedented roadmap to reduce harms from firearms in new ways

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

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A safer America will require bold investment in discovering, implementing, and scaling solutions that reduce firearm harms—especially those that center the people and communities most affected. That was the clear message from the JAMA Summit on Firearm Violence, which convened 60 leaders from across the nation to chart a roadmap toward reducing firearm violence, injuries, and deaths in the United States to record lows by 2040. The full report findings of the 2025 Summit are published in JAMA this month.

Over two days, experts from public health, medicine, law, economics, and industry participated in sessions focused on:

• Achieving the safest world possible by 2040
• Cutting-edge, locally initiated gun violence prevention strategies 
• Innovations in firearms, ammunition, community safety tech
• Advances in market-ready firearm safety technology
• Changing fundamental structures that lead to gun violence in the first place

The Summit outlined five essential actions for the next five years to achieve this vision:

1. Focusing on local communities and transforming conditions that fundamentally drive firearm harms to produce lasting change.
2. Responsibly harnessing firearm technology in ways that resonate with consumers and reduce rather than exacerbate risk.
3. Changing the national narrative on firearm harms to build broad support for evidence-based solutions that bring people together over the problem, not polarize them.
4. Adopt a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, engaging multiple, sometimes seemingly unrelated sectors, in coordinated efforts.
5. Spark a research revolution to accelerate discovery and implementation of proven, practical interventions.

“Firearm-related injuries remain one of the most pressing public health crises in the U.S.,” said Charles Branas, PhD, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a co-author of the JAMA study. “Gun violence is not something that happens to ‘other people’ in ‘other places’; it is an American problem that touches all of us—through grief, fear, and lost opportunity. Gun violence is everyone’s problem. We won’t break this cycle by doing the same things and expecting different results.” 

Gun violence is a shared American problem that reaches both small towns and big cities. From 2001–2020, overall firearm death rates were higher in the most rural counties—driven by suicides—while urban areas continued to shoulder disproportionate homicides, a dual reality that demands new ideas and programs tested and scaled with communities. 

“The Summit’s vision for 2040 is a country where firearm violence is substantially reduced and all communities feel safe from firearm harms,” said Branas, who was on the JAMA Summit steering committee. “We need new ideas and new programs—innovations that prevent shootings before they occur, support people and places at highest risk, and address the upstream conditions that fuel gun violence. With science, accountability, and community leadership, we can make safety a lasting reality.”

Community violence intervention programs must be supported with sustainable funding, professional training, and integration into healthcare and city systems. Reimagining systems of response to gun violence and community care was identified as key.

The Summit also highlighted the potential and challenges of rapidly emerging gun safety technologies. From AI-driven tools to smart firearm designs, new technology must be pursued and guided by ethical choices and transparency. “We must engage gun owners, providers, responders, and prevention specialists to ensure we make the most of new technologies that could have a transformative effect on our gun violence problem.” noted Branas.

Real progress will come from bold, systems-level interventions that prioritize the well-being of people and neighborhoods. Evidence shows that environmental improvements—such as greening vacant lots, repairing abandoned buildings, and enhancing street lighting—can significantly reduce firearm assaults, especially in low-income areas. 

“Prior studies published in JAMA found that greening vacant lots, remediating abandoned buildings, and improving street lighting can meaningfully reduce firearm violence and improve mental health,” said Branas. “Randomized controlled trials have found that addressing fundamental problems like this significantly reduces firearm violence and keeps it down for local communities.”

About the JAMA Summit on Firearm Violence
The JAMA Summit on Firearm Violence convenes leaders in science, medicine, policy, and community action to advance innovation and accelerate progress toward a safer America. The 2025 Summit outcomes are published in JAMA, presenting a comprehensive roadmap for reducing firearm harms by 2040.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the third largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.mailman.columbia.edu.