The Damage To A Footballer’s Brain
AMERICAN footballers have brains. Really. Dr. Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), has looked between the ears of American football players and found evidence of brain action:
“What’s been surprising is that (the damage is) so extensive. It’s throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it’s deep inside.”
The damage affects the parts of the brain that control emotion, rage, hypersexuality, even breathing, and recent studies find that CTE is a progressive disease that eventually kills brain cells.
That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“We think this is how chronic traumatic encephalopathy starts,” said McKee. “This is speculation, but I think we can assume that this would have continued to expand.”
Think. Specualtion. Assume.
Science.
Dead athletes’ brains show damage from concussions
Posted: 27th, January 2009 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
