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More than half of the first 21 brains donated to the Australian Sports Brain Bank by former athletes showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease caused by repeated concussions, a study showed. CTE, which can only be detected when the brain is examined after death, has been linked to mental health issues ranging from mood and behavioural symptoms to cognitive impairment and dementia. The study, which was approved by the Sydney Local Health District Ethics Review Committee (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital), reported its preliminary findings based on the first 21 completed donations up to March 26, 2021. (2/28)

Former Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan was found to have had Stage 1 chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a post-mortem examination, his family was told this week. After his death in May of 2021, Brennan’s brain was sent to the CTE Center at Boston University. The test results confirmed what his parents had suspected. “We knew Colt was struggling,” said his father, Terry. “We just didn’t know everything. He certainly had his challenges… This is just a piece of the puzzle, I guess.” Brennan, who grew up in Orange County and played at Mater Dei High and Saddleback College, dealt with drug and alcohol issues and died after an overdose that included fentanyl. He was 37. (Miller, 2/25)

If it feels as if everyone you encounter is a close talker these days, you’re not alone: Distances that would have felt comfortable for most people before the pandemic are much too close for many now, researchers and mental-health experts say. Among a small group of subjects whose personal-space boundaries were tested by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, personal-space requirements increased by 40% to 50% on average, says Daphne Holt, who led the study and is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. (Janin, 2/27)

With the pandemic dragging on, the string of setbacks that recently hit Lucas Regnier, a sophomore at Concordia University Wisconsin, seemed oddly routine. A wrestler and physical education major, he suffered a concussion and a sprained ACL. Then, he and half his team contracted covid-19, forcing him to isolate in the basement of his girlfriend’s parents’ home, disrupting his academics and prized training time with teammates. “I have been out eight weeks,” said Regnier, who has anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and was sporting sweats as he finally attended practice in early February. “I have been struggling to keep mentally strong.” (Pappano, 2/25)

A man in the throes of a panic attack called 911 from his Chula Vista apartment on a recent morning. It’s the kind of call police officers would usually go to. Instead, the Chula Vista Police Department forwarded the call to Lauren Muecke, who works for the county’s Mobile Crisis Response Teams. “We’re not going to be sending an ambulance, and we’re not going to be sending police officers,” Muecke told the man. “We’re happy to talk to you today and support you today. How does that sound to you?” (Winkley and Murga, 2/27)

Hundreds of low-income D.C. families reported better mental health and food security after participating in a direct cash pilot program that could be a model for efforts elsewhere, according to an Urban Institute analysis of the program’s effectiveness. The THRIVE East of the River cash-payment program, a combined effort of four established D.C. nonprofits, launched in 2020 soon after the pandemic began. It gave $5,500 with no-strings-attached to approximately 600 families in Ward 8, where the median income is $40,000, under half the Districtwide median. (Heim, 2/26)

Dr. Bryan Roth found himself dealing with the complexities of the psyche when he was 5 or 6 years old: his mother suffered her first episode of schizophrenia. The impact of that experience has shaped Roth’s life. “In junior high I decided I wanted to be a psychiatrist, and by high school I was reading the collective works of Sigmund Freud,” Roth said. “It wasn’t until college that I heard about brain receptors, and they fascinated me.” (Ketwitz, 2/28)