Canadian scientists racing to diagnose CTE before death

Brendan Hynes lies flat on his back inside an MRI machine in the basement research lab of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the thunderous whump-whump-whump of radio waves meeting a magnetic field filling his ears. The Canadian military veteran has endured 27 years of exposure to bomb blasts, leaving him with severe symptoms that destroyed his career and nearly took his life: panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, uncontrollable anger and depression.

Hynes suspects he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy — CTE, an incurable brain disease that has been identified in hundreds of professional athletes. The Canadian army listed it on his release paperwork. But there's a cruel catch: no one can actually prove he has it until he dies.

There's simply no scientific way to confirm CTE while someone is alive.

Until now, perhaps. A team of Canadian scientists is attempting to change that. They're running a massive, years-long research project aimed at diagnosing CTE in living people — making Hynes one puzzle piece out of thousands of participants offering up their damaged brains so researchers can identify the disease's hallmarks before it's too late.

"Our goal is to be the first lab in the world to image CTE and be able to diagnose it in life so that we can stop the disease and reverse it," said Neil Vasdev, director of the Brain Health Imaging Centre at CAMH.

For Hynes, the research is personal and urgent. He wants to know what's happening inside his own brain, even if the answer is CTE. "To me, it's even scarier than other forms of dementia or Alzheimer's," he said. "Lashing out? Violence? I don't want that to be me. I don't want to affect my family like that."

CTE develops years after repeated head trauma — from concussions in contact sports or shock waves from explosions. It's degenerative and incurable. Symptoms are harrowing: memory loss, confusion, behavioural changes, depression, anxiety, balance issues, tremors, suicidal thoughts, and cognitive decline that can mimic dementia.

The disease gained worldwide attention in the early 2000s after Nigerian American neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu identified it in U.S. football player Mike Webster. Since then, hundreds of cases among professional athletes have been confirmed posthumously: at least 18 former NHL players and more than 340 former NFL players.

But those headline-making stories all share a grim common thread — the diagnosis came after death.

Hynes spoke to CBC News before his scans at CAMH, hoping the research gives medical teams a chance to help others like him. The stakes couldn't be higher: a disease that ruins lives and can't be confirmed until it's too late. If Vasdev's team succeeds, they won't just change diagnosis. They might change what happens next — the chance to stop the disease and reverse it while someone is still alive to benefit.

For thousands of veterans, athletes, and people exposed to repeated head trauma, that possibility is everything.