MAPT and neurodegenerative disease: While p-tau immunoreactive neuronal profiles have long been recognised, only more recently have p-tau astroglial pathologies been documented in the context of aging and neurodegenerative disease [5, 27–30], with p-tau immunoreactive, thorn-shaped astrocytes recognised as a prominent component of the pathology of CTE-NC [20, 21, 25, 36, 38, 42].