Boston University researchers in a groundbreaking study found that those with CTE have a much higher chance of being diagnosed with dementia.

The largest study of its kind from the Boston University CTE Center reveals that the progressive brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy should be recognized as a new cause of dementia.

The BU researchers discovered that those with advanced CTE — who had been exposed to repetitive head impacts — had four times higher odds of having dementia.

“This study provides evidence of a robust association between CTE and dementia as well as cognitive symptoms, supporting our suspicions of CTE being a possible cause of dementia,” said Michael Alosco, associate professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine.

“Establishing that cognitive symptoms and dementia are outcomes of CTE moves us closer to being able to accurately detect and diagnose CTE during life, which is urgently needed,” added Alosco, who’s the co-director of clinical research at the BU CTE Center.

The researchers studied 614 brain donors who had been exposed to repetitive head impacts, primarily contact sport athletes.

By isolating 366 brain donors who had CTE alone, compared to 248 donors without CTE, researchers found that those with the most advanced form of CTE had four times increased odds of having dementia.

The four times odds are similar to the strength of the relationship between dementia and advanced Alzheimer’s disease pathology, which is the leading cause of dementia.

Dementia is a clinical syndrome that refers to impairments in thinking and memory, in addition to trouble with performing tasks of daily living like driving and managing finances. Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause, but there are several other progressive brain diseases listed as causes of dementia that are collectively referred to as Alzheimer’s disease related dementias (ADRD).

With this new study, the authors argue that CTE should now also be formally considered an ADRD.

The study also reveals that dementia due to CTE is often misdiagnosed during life as Alzheimer’s disease, or not diagnosed at all. Among those who received a dementia diagnosis during life, 40% were told they had Alzheimer’s disease despite showing no evidence of Alzheimer’s disease at autopsy. An additional 38% were told the causes of their loved one’s dementia was “unknown” or could not be specified.

In addition, this study addressed the controversial viewpoint expressed by some clinicians and researchers that CTE has no clinical symptoms. As recently as 2022, clinicians and researchers affiliated with the Concussion in Sport Group meeting, which was underwritten by international professional sports organizations, claimed, “It is not known whether CTE causes specific neurological or psychiatric problems.”

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Alosco said, “There is a viewpoint out there that CTE is a benign brain disease; this is the opposite of the experience of most patients and families. Evidence from this study shows CTE has a significant impact on people’s lives, and now we need to accelerate efforts to distinguish CTE from Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia during life.”

As expected, the study did not find associations with dementia or cognition for low-stage CTE.

The BU CTE Center is an independent academic research center at the Boston University Avedisian and Chobanian School of Medicine. It conducts pathological, clinical and molecular research on CTE and other long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes and military personnel.

 

 

The Gophers snapped their seven-game losing streak in fashion Friday at 3M Arena a Mariucci, upsetting rival Wisconsin 4-1.

It was the fifth-straight loss for the eighth-ranked Badgers, while Minnesota has four top-10 wins on the campaign.

LJ Mooney and Erik Pahlsson each scored power-play goals.

Mooney’s goal came via a one-timer from the left circle off a feed from Luke Mittelstadt to knot the game at 1-1 late in the opening stanza. Pahlsson put Minnesota up for good with a sharp-angle shot to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead midway through the second. Fewer than two minutes later, a Brodie Ziemer redirect extended the advantage to two goals.

It was Minnesota’s first win since the calendar flipped to 2026.

“We needed to get rewarded. I kept saying traction. You know, the words that I’ve been saying. How many of those games, even in the last six, had we played very well, but we fell behind? Then we’re chasing the game. We finally put two power-play goals in, and we finally got a 5-on-5 goal to extend a lead. Then they had to chase us; and then we got comfortable,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said in a statement. “One game, but I’ll give our guys (credit). Their focus to work and compete and want to get better through all of it; has been as special as I’ve been around.”

The Gophers and Badgers squared off again Saturday in Minneapolis.

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Amy Lindgren

Hiring bonuses are having a moment — thanks to a well-publicized recruitment push by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As you may have heard, their employment offer for targeted roles features $50,000 bonuses, with additional student loan forgiveness topping off at $60,000.

This is a rich package by any measure, and one that would not normally be offered to frontline workers. That said, hiring bonuses on a smaller scale are not uncommon, appearing in any industry or level where employers perceive an extra boost is needed to attract candidates.

These incentives might seem straightforward (Extra money up front? Why thank you!) but they can come with more strings than a macramé potholder. Read on for tips to keep from getting tangled in the knots.

• Understand the employer’s perspective. Why would an employer craft a hiring bonus instead of simply offering a better wage? In a nutshell, bonuses happen once but wages are forever. Where a bonus will be paid but not repeated, the worker’s wage will continue to increase. Not only that, but wages also serve as the foundation for percentage-based perks such as retirement benefits or future raises. The higher the initial wage, the more money the employer will spend year after year on the same worker.

Conversely, these are the same reasons career consultants urge their candidates to go for the wage first: It will mean more money in the long run. That said, negotiating for a bonus can be a viable alternative when candidates can’t get to the wage they want. It’s better than nothing, and could be easier for the manager to get approved.

• Understand the offer. To start, it helps to rename the hiring bonus for what it really is: A retention bonus. While you might get a bonus simply for signing on (sometimes this is accurately called a sign-on bonus), it’s more likely that you’ll receive only part of the pay up front, with the rest coming after you hit certain milestones. (That’s the case for the DHS bonuses, with the money being paid out in installments over the course of five years.)

In these cases, it’s not the fact of the milestones that matters, but their content and the conditions for meeting them. If, for example, you’re told you’ll receive $5,000 paid out in $1,000 increments every six months, that’s an easy requirement to track.

But what if you need to meet a certain work quota every six months, or find that the payments will depend on performance reviews? You can see where this is heading. Some of these factors are out of your control, which means that you might not see some or most of the payment you were expecting.

• Watch for the clawback. That nasty-sounding word is nonetheless accurate. Depending on the terms of your offer, an employer can “claw back” money already paid if you leave early or otherwise don’t hold up your end of the bargain. This can be a nasty surprise, particularly in the case of money you used to relocate or invest in the job itself.

• Check for stability. If your payout is staged for three years, or even five on the long side, are you certain the funds are going to be there? Will the organization? This isn’t the easiest thing to assess, but having the question in mind might motivate you to negotiate for a shorter window or more of the bonus up front.

• Get it in writing. If a recruiter or manager mentions off-hand that they’ll “sweeten the pot” with a bonus, your next step is to confirm that by email and then look for it in the formal offer. For example your email might include, “I enjoyed our meeting on Wednesday and learning more about this position. It was especially good to hear about the bonus you mentioned. I’d be interested in knowing more details about that as we talk more; it’s a great incentive!”

One reason for the email is to create the (electronic) paper trail, in case your hiring process gets handed off to someone else. But it’s also a way of testing the waters. If they were serious, they’ll take the bait; if not, they’ll either back-pedal or go silent. That’s not ideal, but it’s better to know early on if someone’s playing games with you.

When you receive an employment offer with the bonus described more fully, consider running it by an attorney or mentor before accepting, particularly if you see clawback wording.

Bottom line? Bonuses of all stripes can be wonderful things, provided you understand the terms and don’t count too heavily on receiving the total payout. Celebrate the moment but proceed with caution, remembering “All that glitters is not gold,” as the saying goes.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

By Ariana Perez-Castells, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Job hunters beware: some of the hard-earned skills listed on your resume are going unnoticed by potential employers.

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Workers’ profiles on job posting websites often feature general abilities, like leadership, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, a recent report from the Wharton School says. But they’re not highlighting the “specialized, execution-oriented skills,” employers are seeking. That’s created a “skills mismatch economy.”

“People are not representing their skills in a way that’s necessarily resonating with the skills that employers want,” said Eric Bradlow, the vice dean of artificial intelligence and analytics at the Wharton School, who co-authored the report.

Meanwhile, AI has been speeding the shift from a “role-based labor market to a skills-based economy,” the report outlines, making it all the more poignant to know what skills employers actually want.

Bradlow, says generative AI has been “a positively destructive bomb on roles and titles,” by making workers able to carry out tasks that they didn’t know how to do in the past. So “having a specific job title is becoming less relevant.”

The Wharton School worked in partnership with Accenture, a professional services firm, to analyze millions of job postings and worker profiles for the report. The study used data from Lightcast, a labor market data provider, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bradlow spoke with The Inquirer about their findings.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What are some skills included on resumes that don’t make much difference to employers, because everyone seems to have them?

A: Do we think it’s important to communicate? Well, yeah, of course, it is. Do we think it’s important to have leadership skills and manage teams well? Yeah, of course. Last time I checked, those were really important parts of the job — but everybody puts that down. We’re not saying in the report that those skills aren’t important. What we’re saying is there’s an over supply of people stating those skills, as opposed to companies saying these skills are what’s going to get you the job.

Companies are realizing that depth of skill is what’s going to be really important.

Q: Do people lack the specialized skills employers are looking for? Or are they just failing to highlight them on their resumes?

A: That’s something, trust me, I wish I could answer.

If we had people’s transcript data, or if we knew what courses someone had taken, then we could try to get an understanding of what skills people actually have.

I think two things are going to happen, based on this Wharton-Accenture Skills Index gap report. Number one is, you will see a migration where people [will say] “I need to acquire those skills, if I don’t have them, if I want a job.” Second, you’ll see [organizations] — whether it’s an academic institution or a for-profit institution — saying “wait a second, here, we need more people with this skill. We’ll create a certification program.”

Q: You found that some skills are actually tied to higher-paying jobs. Was that surprising?

A: I’m not sure I had hypotheses about which skills would be paid higher or lower.

I think maybe the part that surprised me a little bit was that there wasn’t massive swings and variation like “if you have this skill, your salary doubles.” That’s not what we found in the data.

Q: What advice would you give someone crafting their resume?

A: One is talk about the specific skills you have. Every resume I read says “I’m an effective communicator, experienced leader.” That’s fine, but that’s not what’s going to stick out and become differentiated, because everyone’s going to say that. To the degree that you have specific expertise and depth or skills, those are the kinds of things to put on the resume.

The second thing I would say is that … we should be in the skills acquisition business, be a lifelong learner. Skills will always be valued. Jobs in a particular workflow can go away. People with skills will be hired.

Take, for instance, a customer support agent in a customer satisfaction group. If you’re someone with exceptional problem solving skills, you’re hearing your customer, and you’re able to tie it to some remedy, that skill is not going to go away even if the job you’re currently in happens to go away.

Q: What skills are needed more or needed less because of the adoption of AI recently?

A: I don’t view it as AI replacing humans. I view AI as that decision-support tool you should use for every decision. If I were an employer today, I wouldn’t even consider hiring someone that didn’t recognize the power of artificial intelligence as a decision-support aid. I don’t know what business decision — pricing decision, product launch decision, product design decision, possibly even hiring decision — [for which] I wouldn’t use artificial intelligence as a decision support tool.

I would also say, equally, I’m very concerned about the agentic use of AI — in some sense totally handing over high stakes decisions.

Q: From where you stand, is AI coming for people’s jobs, as we often hear, or is it coming for their skills? What’s the difference?

A: Go through the history of mankind.

The train engine came. So you mean we don’t need as many horses? Electricity came. You mean we don’t need as much coal? Green energy came, and so now we don’t need as much nuclear fusion?

Doesn’t technology always come and translate one set of jobs to another set of jobs? It’s not AI is coming for your job. What companies are realizing about AI is there are certain roles and functions that AI can do extraordinarily well, with high accuracy, and in some cases better than humans can do. These tend to be functions, by the way, that many humans don’t like doing anyway.

I don’t see AI coming for your job any more so than any set of technology. This is an extraordinarily disruptive technology, but we’ve lived through periods of extraordinarily disruptive technology.

©2026 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.