Tag Archives: CTE

Series from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on CTE

16 May

Mark Roth of the Pittsburgh Post-Gaette put together an informational series on chronic traumatic encephalopathy; “a brain disease that afflicts athletes”.

In the first part that came out this past Sunday, Roth took a look at the global perception of CTE through the examples of Chris Henry and the possible case of still living Fred McNeill;

Chris Henry was a fleet wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals. During his five seasons with the team, he developed a reputation as a talented athlete on the field but a bad boy off it, even though those who knew him well say he was typically quiet and respectful. [...]

Fred McNeill played 12 seasons for the Minnesota Vikings in the ’70s and ’80s. After retiring, he finished law school and became a successful attorney in Minneapolis, helping to win major class-action lawsuits.

Henry would end up dead after an accident that was predicated with some unusual actions by him, McNeill now has full-time care takers as dementia has stripped him of everything he worked hard for.

Roth begins the second piece with those that can be easily called the experts in this area, Bennet Omalu and Ann McKee; Continue reading →

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Sports discourse in the aftermath of Junior Seau’s suicide

13 Jan

Screen shot 2013-01-13 at 6.32.33 PMI remember the anguish that punctured my thoughts when Junior Seau, a star in his own right on the gridiron, placed a handgun to his chest and took his own life eight months ago at his California home. Sitting in my room, I sunk into my chair and spoke no words for more than an hour while giving all I could to refrain from shedding any tears. His death struck me in an unforgettable way that positioned myself, once again, at a crossroads with football and its place in our culture infatuated with the image of the modern-day gladiator.

On May 3, 2012, the day after Seau’s suicide, I scrambled for answers with the shadows of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) looking over my back. I ran a number of searches in Google’s archives for newspaper articles from the 1990s to find some sort of explanation for his actions, but rarely was Seau’s name mentioned directly in relation to a head injury. Although my efforts were rather premature and assuming, there had to be some sort of correlation between Seau’s noted altercations behind closed doors with the thousands of hits his brain endured over the course of a 19-year professional career.

There are, of course, many different storylines that people turn to to explain something so tragic immediately after its occurrence, but confirmation of my original hypothesis (shared by many, I’m sure) by the National Institute of Health several days ago left me in an inexplicable state of unsettled anxiety. Though I inferred Seau would be diagnosed postmortem with CTE, my response to the official announcement was still along the lines of, “Unbelievable.” Continue reading →

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Limiting Head Trauma is Logical

31 May

The research is starting to come in; the problem is that results and conclusions bring more questions that should be answered.  Naturally some will look at early evidence and make a 180 degree change on their attitudes about certain things.  We are talking about concussions and the research associated with it.  Unfortunately there is plenty of anecdotal and observational cases that sear into our memory, this perhaps shape our thought process.  Along with that there is gathering evidence that supports some sort of process change in how we handle this particular injury.

The need to make change is upon us, that cannot be debated; what can be debated is how or what the changes should be.  I recently read an article where Micky Collins of UPMC said something to the effect of current concussion concern is like a pendulum that has swung all the way to the other side.  Although the changes in sports and activities has certainly not taken that full swing the other way, the pendulum is on the way.  His feelings, like mine is that there is no evidence to suggest that a full swing to the other side is warranted, rather there needs to be competent and complete understanding of what we are facing.  Rather than making full sweeping changes that would be akin to digging up your backyard to rid your self of a mole; when placing traps and poisons and maybe only having to dig up a small section would fix the problem.

There are definitely things we can do as parents, players, coaches, researchers, doctors and concerned people in general to make a dent in the issue.  If we find that the changes are not working then taking another aggressive step may be necessary.  I guess the reason for the above rant is to reinforce the need for changes, but the right changes.  (As I wrote the last sentence I realized how do we know if the changes are the “right” ones; I guess we don’t but certainly what is happening now needs attention).

One of the small changes that can be made is very obvious to me; Continue reading →

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Concussion Article Links – MUST READ

9 May

Since the tragic and untimely death of Junior Seau the concussion issue has begun to fester like a three-day old pimple on a 13 year-old’s greasy face.  It is ready to pop and keeping up with all of the pertinent articles and “specials” has been very trying.  In this post I will attempt to link up and highlight as many as I can (surely I will miss many, however Concerned Mom in the comment section will have more).

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Lets begin with ESPN and the Outside the Lines week-long look at concussions.  I have found this to be must see, my DVR is a testament to this; using previous stories and bringing in commentators on the subject have provided information and even fireworks.  Yesterday Merril Hoge and Matt Chaney did just that – provide information and create fireworks.  You can find the podcast here (panelists begin about 7:30 mark).

Hoge drew my ire earlier this week with his admonishing of Kurt Warner’s statement of being a father, however yesterday he did have a very valid point about the management of concussions.  I have said is ad nausea here: the elephant in the room is the management of concussions, however Hoge sounded a bit “underconcerned” about the actual injury.  Which is where Chaney had very valid points about the exposure of concussions to the youth.  They are both right in my estimation; the management is the larger issue but we are seeing too many too young people being effected by concussions.  There needs to be work in both areas and remember this is not just a football issue.

We have the duty to protect our kids and if that means flag football for 5-13 year-olds then I am cool with that.  If we find after making such a drastic change that has not been enough then we can take it further if needed.  I feel that a change like this will allow a few things: 1) more time to let the brain develop and thus allowing research to catch up to what we know.  2) employ more medical providers in a position to find, assess and manage concussions (see athletic trainers). And 3) begin a culture shift about the seriousness of concussions, after all this is a brain injury.

As Chaney later told me; Continue reading →

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Review: Graduate Study Article on CTE

4 May

During this tragic time the inbox has been besieged by many stories, questions and information.  One such email came in on Wednesday night;

In light of Junior’s death, which dovetails with the Saints bounty fallout, I thought I’d pass along this paper I wrote in grad school last year about the long-term risks associated with concussions in professional football. Its something of a review article, that covers the development of CTE and physiology of concussions. I played football in high school and “sucking it up,” as you know, is part of the gridiron culture, but we need to education players, parents, and trainers about the difference between having your bell rung and developing a neurological disorder. This paper hasn’t been peer-reviewed by anyone except my professor, who was a medical writer, not a neurologist but I stand by the science. I started this article by asking for advice from Dr. Robert Stern, the chairman of the Center For The Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University. I drew on their research and many of their articles and they do excellent work.

I also wanted to thank you all for following this issue, which is becoming a major concern for athletes, fans, and families.

The author of the email and of the paper is Doug Taylor and I feel it is a very good piece for all to read.  Although, as Doug notes, the paper is not “peer-reviewed” it does not mean there isn’t valuable information for everyone to read and think about.  I would like to thank Doug for sharing this.

Long Term Effects of Concussions – Doug Taylor

Sports-related concussions are one of the most common injuries sustained by professional football players. The acute symptoms that follow a mild traumatic brain injury are well established, with many instances of headaches, confusion, dizziness, and short spells of amnesia. The long-term effects of these injuries are less comprehensively understood. Continue reading →

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CTE Insight from the Bostonia: but take time to remember the real pioneer

3 May

Shortly before this blog began in September of 2010 there was a brilliant article written in Bostonia regarding the work that Boston University was doing.  This article did not fall into my lap until yesterday during the Junior Seau reporting, it was found tweeted out by none other than Will Carroll, @injuryexpert.

We have come to understand a bit more about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) though the work of those in Boston.  It would be an absolute shame to not mention the person who first found this brain issue, Dr. Bennet Omalu.  Dr. Omalu found it but then was unceremoniously Continue reading →

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CTE Threshold?

23 Apr

Charles Bernik, MD of the Cleveland Clinic thinks that there may be a correlation to repeated head trauma and a threshold of when degenerative brain disease begins, like CTE.  An article appearing in Science Daily last week discusses this;

A new study suggests there may be a starting point at which blows to the head or other head trauma suffered in combat sports start to affect memory and thinking abilities and can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in the brain.

The study looked at 78 “fighters” and split them based on their years of experience, in this study the split was nine years.  Those that Continue reading →

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Kevin Turner Interview

7 Mar

We have written about Kevin Turner before; a former NFL player and Alabama stud who is now dealing with the effects of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).  Turner has started a foundation in his name where they are raising money and awareness about ALS and the workings of the Sports Legacy Institute (SLI) as it relates to CTE.

Yesterday Rachel Baribeau, on her show Barbo & Scarbo (Kevin Scarbinsky), interviewed Kevin Turner on 97.3 The Zone out of Birmingham.  It is such a profound interview that I encourage everyone to take a listen.  You can CLICK HERE for the podcast.

The perseverance of Kevin Turner is and SHOULD be Continue reading →

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Alzheimer’s study may help answer questions about CTE

9 Feb

In response to an article published by the New York Times, the Sports Legacy Institute shared these words (on Twitter): “Mystery solved? Key Alzheimer’s study may have unlocked mystery of how CTE progresses.”  What’s being referenced is the release of information discovered by researchers at Harvard and Columbia, who found that Alzheimer’s disease spreads like an infection—not the spreading of virus or bacteria, but the spread of tau protein.

The involvement of tau protein has long been known to be a part of the process in this disease, but in understanding the ways in which such proteins expand over a period of time within the brain offers a variety of potentialities for neuroscience’s future.  The study was done with genetically engineered mice that could create abnormal tau protein, and over a two-year period, the neuronal makeup of the mice displayed a path of destruction headed by tau protein through networks of the brain.  What was most important to take from this study was the fat that the tau protein functioned through cell-to-cell transmission.

The new studies provide an answer. And they indicate it may be possible to bring Alzheimer’s disease to an abrupt halt early on by preventing cell-to-cell transmission, perhaps with an antibody that blocks tau.

This process has been heavily debated in the scientific community in recent decades, where there was no clear definition to the ways in which Alzheimer’s disease progressed.  Scientists did not agree on whether this process was because of cell-to-cell transmission involving tau protein, or it was because the protein found avenues of invasion through the inadvertent assistance of vulnerable neurons.  The unanswerable mystery of Alzheimer’s disease now seems to have found its answer, with regards to this particular question and finding.  It is now plausible to conceive a method in which the process of this neurodegenerative process could be sidetracked and treated with positive result. Continue reading →

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White Paper

3 Feb

Sometime today Sports Legacy Institute (SLI), headed by Dr. Robert Cantu and Chris Nowinski are going to release a “white paper” that will “plan to spread successful NFL policy changes to all youth sports,”  this according to Irvin Muchnick via his blog Concussion Inc.

What is a white paper?  Glad you asked it is important for context (via Wikipedia);

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and may be a consultation as to the details of new legislation. The publishing of a white paper signifies a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. White Papers are a “ … tool of participatory democracy … not [an] unalterable policy commitment.[1] “White Papers have tried to perform the dual role of presenting firm government policies while at the same time inviting opinions upon them.”

It is mentioned that along with SLI, Boston University’s Center for the Study of Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy (headed by Dr. Ann McKee) will be in the white paper as well.

I will be interested to see what exactly they are Continue reading →

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Who signed up for this?

3 Dec

The widespread understanding of the concussion injury can be defined as scattered, for many may adhere to the simplest definitions of the neurological phenomenon while others may delve more thoroughly into all that the event entails.  There are those who would rather set aside definition and reject any potential complications as something that may interfere with their daily objectives, and there are those who care to recognize the injury as a neurometabolic cascade of chemical imbalance—an attempt by the brain to self-repair after the moment of cell damage in order to restore a more stable sense of homeostasis.  I’m not sure how we can exactly describe the state of the sports environment as it relates to the understanding or attempt to understand the concussion injury, but I do believe that there is a message that needs to be sent and it needs to be sent loud and clear.  Yes, there are questions to be raised regarding the specificity and legitimacy of claims being placed upon terms such as post-concussion syndrome, second-impact syndrome, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, but that does not mean there is an absence of truth in these trauma-related conditions.  Many of us can understand athletes’ points of view regarding this matter, for you can’t go out on the field and perform with fear haunting your thoughts and be quite as effective, but we all need to be better educated on what a concussion really is.  By this, I am not talking about a neuroscientific breakdown of the processes that develop during the brain’s recovery.  I am talking about listening to the people who have felt the debilitating and, often times, life-altering effects of the concussion injury.  I am talking about allowing those who have been impaired or have had even the slightest of alterations in cognitive ability to have a platform on which they can project their voices—their stories.

Efforts toward a more agreed upon and stable set of terms regarding concussion management protocol are by no means an attempt to overanalyze the injury itself.  These efforts are not, in my opinion, indicative of overanalyzed nature because the risks are essentially laid out for us in the examples of real people struggling with real lives who have been in the shoes of the athletes who are complaining about what’s going on in professional, collegiate, and high school and youth sports.  I cannot find any reason to reject such protocol because of the reality of the injury—meaning its capacity to act as a temporarily parasitic collection of damaged cells, where all it would take is one hit to end one’s season, one’s career, or one’s life.  Even with that in mind, there is enough accessible information out there that can interest us in understanding the cumulative effects of the concussion injury, where the compilation of multiple traumatic events could come to haunt one’s life beyond the game in which they play.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and in fact, I have many of my own that aren’t necessarily considered as approving of certain decisions made regarding this subject, but it is hard to sound reasonable in any manner when one is openly criticizing the concussion injury as an insignificant event that athletes might as well have ‘signed up for anyway.’ Continue reading →

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Ken Dryden via Grantland

3 Oct

Ken Dryden was an amazing goalie in the NHL, and has been around long enough to see the transformation of the sport.  Hockey is a very exciting game to watch and really many are missing out on its action.  I continue to tell everyone that there is nothing like a NHL game in the stands, probably the best event one can go to (unless you score a Game 7 ticket in the playoffs).  The issue that Dryden is taking on is one that I have been clamoring for – for a long time – remove shots to the head.  Dryden wrote his article for Grantland and is calling on the NHL and NFL to start playing “head smart”;

This is a difficult time for the NHL, for its commissioner, Gary Bettman, and for hockey. It’s no less difficult for the NFL, for its commissioner, Roger Goodell, for the NCAA, and for football. Head injuries have become an overwhelming fact of life in sports. The immensity of the number, the prominence of the names, the life-altering impact on their lives, and, more disturbing, if that’s possible, the now sheer routineness of their occurrence. The Crosby hit didn’t seem like much. If it hadn’t been Crosby, the clip of the incident would never have made the highlight reel. And if so much can happen out of so little, where is all this going? Who else? How many more? How bad might this get? Careers and lives of players, we know now, have been shortened, diminished, snuffed out by head injuries. What once had seemed debatable, deniable, spin-able, now is not. What once had been ignored now is obvious. Not just contact or collision sports, hockey and football are dangerous sports.

Dryden does not suggest to Bettman, rather implores him to make necessary changes; Continue reading →

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Corwin Brown

17 Aug

The former Michigan star and coach for Notre Dame has been hospitalized due to a self-inflicted wound after a stand-off in his Indiana home.  Fox News has the report;

A statement released by Brown’s family said he became suspicious, distant, gloomy, exhausted and depressed after playing eight seasons in the NFL.

“We believe Corwin is suffering from symptoms similar to those experienced by the late Dave Duerson and were caused by the many notable collisions during Corwin’s career in the NFL,” the family said. “For those reasons, Corwin chose to not disclose his symptoms, as he did not want to bring shame to any coach, team, organization or the NFL. Continue reading →

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Lessons to Learn: Fighting for Football

26 May

“Like there haven’t been concussions in the last 100 years of sports.  Toughen up.  Quit looking for an excuse to sit on the sidelines.” [Comment on USA Today’s “Concussions now a hot issue as leagues toughen policies”]

In football, “pain” is considered “weakness leaving the body.”  It is a sensation that comes with pride and is the noted product of an individual own sacrifice of self to perform for the well being of the team he plays for.  The game itself revolves around the violence that defines football—a collection of organized aggression that is considered to be only accepting of the hard-nosed play of men.  If you can’t take a hit, then you might as well get off the field.  With violence comes expendability, where both characteristics of football blend to give it its beautiful but unforgiving persona.

So tell me what pain is.  Across the country, football players throughout all levels of play are taught the clear difference between being hurt and injured.  The aches, bruises, and cuts; this is when you’re hurt.  You can play through them, and one way or another, you or your coach will make damn sure that you play through them.  The muscle tears and broken bones, however, are clear to be defined as injuries, where slings, crutches, and casts are provided in relations of series of x-ray scans that prove that something is wrong with your body.  Here you are forgiven.  We’ll see you in a few weeks when you’re ready to go.  And as long as you stay true to your promise that you have dedicated yourself to this football program, then you will have your position on the depth chart back when you’ve shown the medical professionals that your body is in sufficient condition to play.

Now the real question is, what is a headache?  Sure, we’ve all played through headaches at one point or another throughout the course of our football careers, but did we ever stop to think about what it may be, or take the time to give ourselves a self-evaluation of our ability to continue playing at an efficient level?  Did we maybe forget being the huddle immediately as we placed our fingers on the line of scrimmage before the play began?  Did we fumble our words when calling an offensive or defensive play because we simply did not consolidate the routine signals or calls that our coaches have engrained in our minds since day one?  Did we ever come to forget the score of the game, or wonder how or why you were in on a certain play but not have the ability to recall making the tackle? Continue reading →

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The Downfall of Dave Duerson

6 May

(Project Brain Wave)  In 2007, at a Senate subcommittee hearing regarding the implications of long-term cognitive deficits as it relates to repetitive trauma to the head in football, Dave Duerson questioned the legitimacy of such a claim by dismissing any thoughts of relation to the game he played and loved to the neurological struggles of his peers.  Such an assertion at the time was of course denied by many involved with the game, and was largely considered an attack on the forefront of football’s integrity.  During his career, Duerson had at least ten concussions, and lost consciousness during some, according to his family.  And yet Duerson’s argument was founded upon the following claim:

“In regards to the issue of Alzheimer’s, my father’s 84, and as I mentioned earlier, Senator, spent 30 years at General Motors,” Duerson testified.  “He also has—he also has Alzheimer’s and brain damage but never played a professional sport.  So the challenge, you know, in terms of where the damage comes from, is a fair question.”

2007 was a time of inquiry for the national pride of football, as it found itself under tremendous scrutiny dating back to the finding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame center, “Iron” Mike Webster.  Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain that develops as a result of repetitive head trauma.  This trauma includes the symptomatic, and asymptomatic concussive blows to the head.  It is a disease that is associated with memory loss, impulse control problems, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, and eventual progressive dementia, most notably characterized by the build-up of tau protein in the brain—an abnormal protein that serves as a decisive key to the mental deterioration of the individual.

What is it that Duerson allowed to blockade his openness to such a proposal?  Without a doubt the pride instilled in the football athlete holds true and strong to the immense withholding of responsibility to the game itself.  Players will defend their sport, because they feel indebted to the numerous life lessons, experiences, and unforgettable memories that paint the legacies of players such as Duerson.  It is also a tremendous rejection of anything that may have been perceived to be a way of life to rather be a way of deferring one’s future to that of an accelerated cognitive decline.  It is fear.  It is knowing that the unknown could be developing without your awareness.  Duerson’s comments regarding the rejection of such a proposal of neurodegenerative implication as a result of playing football signify the feelings of the time.  After all, this was only found in just a few of his fellow football retirees.  This was something that was not widely accepted or acknowledged by those with medical degrees all throughout, and it certainly was something that the National Football League was not willing to endorse. Continue reading →

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Shane Dronett diagnosed with CTE

2 Apr

Shane Dronett, former offensive lineman for the Atlanta Falcons, has been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  The discovery was made following his 2009 death, which was ruled a suicide.  CNN Health does an excellent job giving a synopsis of his downward spiral.  I recommend everyone to take the time to view the story of Dronett, as well as how his erratic behavior affected his family leading up to the self-inflicted termination of his life.

Featured quotes from the CNN Health article include…

It began in 2006, with a bad dream.

“He woke up in the middle of the night and started screaming and told everyone to run out of the house,” said Chris Dronett, Shane Dronett’s wife. “He thought that someone was blowing up our house. It was very frightening.”

Chris tried to dismiss the incident as isolated, except that two weeks later, there was another outburst, then another, until they were an almost-nightly occurrence. And as Shane’s fear and paranoia began overwhelming him, so did episodes of confusion and rage that sometimes turned violent. Continue reading →

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ESPN Radio: Nowinski on Concussions

11 Mar

Bill Simmons recently interviewed Chris Nowinski of the Sports Legacy Institute and Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy on ESPN Radio.  Their discussion covered many aspects of the leading issue in sports: the concussion crisis.  The podcast covers such things as Nowinski’s story, his involvement, and what he and others are doing in taking on the issue from all directions.  Simmons leads the conversation regarding how sports and medical institutions are working toward exposing the truth to the injury, the need for proper injury management, and how this is to be best addressed in the world of athletics, most notably at the professional levels.  Nowinski gives an in depth review on how concussions in sports need to be asked the how’s and the why’s to further the progress in research involving chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  Nowinski has always been someone who I have paid close attention to because his opinions and suggestions are truly in need of being heard by all.  I encourage everyone to listen to this podcast for it is rich with information.  Listen here.

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Nowinski on Duerson & ‘Hit Counts’

1 Mar

The Sports Legacy Institute, on Facebook, shared this video posted by the New England Comcast Network.  It is an interview involving Christopher Nowinski, who briefly discusses the downward spiral of Dave Duerson as well as the introduction of a system that would be analogous to baseball’s ‘pitch count,’ which would carefully follow and measure the number of hits to one’s head.  It is a brief, yet definitely worthwhile video to watch.  Let us hear your thoughts about how the game of football may be improved, in correlation to the proposals made in the past year.

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Recent ABC Story

26 Feb

ABC has run a very extensive story about head injuries in sport (see football) in light of the Duerson suicide.  The article is good but what is striking are the videos associated with it.  Not only the embedded video on the first page, but the sourced videos below it, mainly about Mike Webster (Driven Mad?).

Neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, MD, who was the first to identify the condition, told MedPage Today, “There is no reason, no medical justification, for any child younger than 18 to play football, period.”

As we should know Omalu is the godfather of CTE, he first found it with Webster and subsequently other former NFL’ers, once called a “doctor of Voodoo medicine” Omalu has some of the best perspective on this injury.

“People said then, and still are saying today, that when former athletes deteriorate into depression, drug abuse, and even violence and criminality, it’s because they don’t compete well on the field of life after competing well on the field of football,” Omalu said in an interview with MedPage Today. Continue reading →

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Video About Duerson

21 Feb

Newsy.com, a Multi-source Video Analysis website, has run a video about Duerson and information surrounding his untimely death.

VIDEO LINK HERE

Of note in the Duerson follow-up has been the fact that he shot himself in the chest, and it is being reported that he mentioned to his family that he did that for the explicit reason of not harming his brain.

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Tom McHale and CTE

6 Feb

There is an amazing “Outside the Lines” video on the ESPN.com website.  There is an issue of embedding it here on this site, however I can provide a link (7 minutes).

OTL: Future of Football

The story begins telling us about Tom McHale, former NFL offensive lineman, who had a terrible end to his life at a young age.  What was found posthumously in Tom’s brain was chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an occurrence that is becoming more evident as brains are examined.  Although CTE cannot be directly contributed to his death, CTE can cloud judgment and affect the executive function of the brain, leading to cases like McHale.

The video takes a look at what former players think of the sport, in particular what they are going to do with their own kids; the McHale’s, Eddie Mason and LaVar Arrington.

Take a look and comment back here.

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Football As A Concussion

1 Feb

We are surrounded by hypocrisy, denial, and complete ignorance. The political and economic sphere of the National Football League has swollen into a cyclic route of blindness, though we allow some of the ‘light’ to enter our tunnel each time a tragedy may occur.  Like a concussion, the culture of football is presented in a state of instability, with neurons no longer responding to transmitted signals, complimented by the biological processes of the brain striving to reach, yet again, a level of homeostasis within the area of damage.  Players, coaches, and fans have plentifully ignored the significance of mild traumatic brain injury, and even as some, including medical professionals, strive for further awareness to make certain leaps in the right direction, football still remains as a tarnished entity that will be forever haunted by the concussion crisis.  Football, in a sense, is an area of the brain that is no longer stimulated, though ‘neurons’ still send signals to such ‘target cells,’ despite the fact that such a practice of plasticity seems to receive no positive feedback.

So what do we do?  We need to realize that this ‘concussion’ of a culture could have been avoided, and that there needs to be a widespread consensus on wanting to reach a period in which we can all say, “we did all that we could.”  We’re not there yet, though, and I am sure it will take quite some time to revive football’s reputation in relation to this chronic pain that neuroscience has declared to be a crisis.

In 2002, the National Football League was introduced its offensive weapon that deflated its multi-billion dollar balloon.  This weapon, in a sense, is the brain of former Hall of Famer Mike Webster, who played sixteen seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Webster’s brain was acquired by Dr. Bennet Omalu, who would later find the presence of a neurodegenerative disease in “Iron Mike.”  This disease would be named chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and served as a bridge that linked Webster’s erratic behavior towards the end of his life to the years of concussive and subconcussive blows to the head.

Webster struggled significantly after his playing career ended.  He had invested his money in a handful of miserably unsuccessful attempts at running businesses, and often found himself homeless, living out of his car.  What was it that could have led such a successful man on the football field, filled with pride and confidence for years, to follow such a dramatic downward spiral? Continue reading →

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WWE Comes Under Fire

4 Jan

Irvin Muchnick the author of Chris & Nancy: The true story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death wrote a blog today about the transparency of the World Wrestling Entertainment business.  It is a fascinating look at the “inside” of the WWE and their current leadership of the medical team.  Muchnick contends that Dr. Bryan Donahue, cardiologist, and Dr. Joseph Maroon, neurosurgeon, both of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and WWE’s medical team, may have a conflict of interest when it comes to supplements.

However, this blog also highlights some of the “thought process” behind the WWE and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, and the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality.

In terms of Maroon’s medical specialty of neurology, the matter of closest interest was his response to a study of Benoit’s brain tissue, which showed a large accumulation of tau proteins, the sign of CTE. The examination was conducted by a forensic pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, one of the pioneers of this research, at the behest of the Sports Legacy Institute. SLI had been started by a former WWE performer and Harvard graduate, Chris Nowinski, who retired from the ring as a result of his own concussions.

Much like Maroon and the NFL originally, WWE tried to discredit or downplay CTE research. But the hiring of Maroon to coordinate WWE’s wellness policy coincided with the addition of Maroon’s imPACT testing and of Donohue’s area of expertise, cardiovascular screening. In total, five out of the wellness program’s eight medical professionals listed at the WWE website are from UPMC.

Muchnick also penned some inconsistencies in regards to CTE information provided by the WWE and what they (medical director, Dr. Maroon) actually knew: Continue reading →

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The Sad End of Brad Evans

23 Nov

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A promising young athlete struck down in the prime of his life, at his own hands.  Brad Evans of Hobbton High School in North Carolina ended his life with a gunshot.  A seemingly “put together” young man who had no indication of depression or impulse control issues suddenly and without explanation felt compelled to end it.  Brad was going to go to college to play baseball and possibly strive for his ultimate goal of the Major Leagues.

This was to happen after his senior season, including on the gridiron, where all the problems may have begun.  It is very important to say that there is and most likely will not be a link, but Brad suffered three concussion in a month’s time.  He  returned prematurely, and did not get a doctor’s clearance to participate.  His final concussion occurred on October 8th and required a helicopter transport to a regional medical center.

The time line and a very good narrative of what happened to this young man are at the FayObserver.com, written by Greg Barnes.

No one will ever know whether Brad suffered from CTE, or whether the repeated blows to his head altered his thinking and led him to take his own life.

Suicide remains one of the most common causes of death among teenagers.

But a mounting body of evidence – reinforced by the unlikely deaths of three promising young athletes since April – suggests that at least some of those suicides could be linked to repeated hits to the head.

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Sports Legacy Institute

5 Oct

I encourage everyone to visit the Sports Legacy Institute via the link on the left.  This is a great initiative that began in 2007 with the ideas from Chris Nowinski.  Headed on the medical side by Robert Cantu, MD this program is the leader in CTE research.

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