Brain scan comparisons
UCLA
Brain scans of a control subject, a person with Alzheimer’s disease, a retired football player and a member of the military. Warmer colors (toward the red end of the scale) indicate a higher concentration of the tracer used in the UCLA research; the tracer binds to abnormal proteins in the brain. The tracer is injected into a patient, then seen with a PET scan, to determine whether it is possible to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living people.