Neuro Note - Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
For my second "Neuro Note", I decided to look into the topic of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This is such a new subject to be studied and it is scary the results they are starting to discover. Back in 2009, Ole Miss had a football player named Tony Fien. Fien was a former military guy, but came to Ole Miss to play a few years of football. The cool thing about this guy is that he started the "Fins Up" and "Landshark" that is so famous around the campus of Ole Miss. He embodied this as life-style and attitude he had on the field. A few years ago, Tony died of suspicious death that was drug related, but many Ole Miss fans wondered if his continued tough sports mode hurt his life in the long run. Our new mascot the land shark is now named Tony to pay respect to this wonderful guy. Sadly enough, the quarterback that year was Jevan Snead. He committed succeed this year. His family started to see earlier signs of depression, memory loss, and chronic mood swings. Jevan's family decided to send his brain in to test. Jevan was only 31.
I decided to watch the video titled "Can I have your brain? The quest for truth on concussions and CTE" by Chris Nowinski. Chris was a former football player himself at Harvard. He started noticing a lot of players that he looked up to dying suspicious or out of the blue. CTE is a fairly "new" subject and has not been studied much. It was commonly referred to with athletes in the sport of boxing for being "punch drunk". Chris's interest really peaked when a former favorite player of his, Andre Water's, committed suicide. After gaining consent to study his brain, Andre was soon diagnosed as the third person with CTE. Chris goes on to talk about instead of calling and asking for brains, he launched a campaign that had NFL and other professional athletes sign up to give their brains to science. When they started, only 45 cases were known to exist, since then they have acquired 500 brains and 300 of those had CTE. Of the first 111 NFL players that they studied, 110 had the disease.
I found this video not only frighting but also uplifting (which is weird). First, its frightening because my dad played college football. The other night I asked him his favorite games and he said, "honestly, I don't remember many." Then we got on the discussion of how he didn't remember me getting student of the year (twice). He couldn't remember awards night or my brothers games. So it is terrifying to think of the trauma his brain has endured. Next, it is uplifting to know now that schools and personal are starting to take action. People are buying newer helmets with more padding. Also players must follow a concussion protocol before they are allowed back into a game. Finally, leagues have invoked "targeting" rules to stop hitting with the head.
Base on this ted talk though, this is about all we have right now. Its mostly preventative. And, we can only study the brains once the person is actually dead. But from further studying, signs and symptoms are slow at first, but the progress pretty fast. Some symptoms include cognitive impairment, impulsive behaviors, depression, short-term memory loss, emotional instability, and substance abuse. The saddest part is a lot of these people that have died have not even reached the age of 50.
One of the saddest stories I have watched about CTE is Tyler Hilinski. He was 21 years old and was prepared to be the starting quarterback for WSU the upcoming season. He committed suicide. His parents knew they needed to take action. They submitted his brain to testing. He had stage 1 CTE. I remember in an ESPN video them saying his brain looked like a 50 year old mans.
I have included two additional resources for CTE. One is a fact sheet about the disease that we currently know. The other is the ESPN video about Tyler Hilinski and his family's story.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy/symptoms-causes/syc-20370921
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyCiO7n7XEE
Reference List:
I decided to watch the video titled "Can I have your brain? The quest for truth on concussions and CTE" by Chris Nowinski. Chris was a former football player himself at Harvard. He started noticing a lot of players that he looked up to dying suspicious or out of the blue. CTE is a fairly "new" subject and has not been studied much. It was commonly referred to with athletes in the sport of boxing for being "punch drunk". Chris's interest really peaked when a former favorite player of his, Andre Water's, committed suicide. After gaining consent to study his brain, Andre was soon diagnosed as the third person with CTE. Chris goes on to talk about instead of calling and asking for brains, he launched a campaign that had NFL and other professional athletes sign up to give their brains to science. When they started, only 45 cases were known to exist, since then they have acquired 500 brains and 300 of those had CTE. Of the first 111 NFL players that they studied, 110 had the disease.
I found this video not only frighting but also uplifting (which is weird). First, its frightening because my dad played college football. The other night I asked him his favorite games and he said, "honestly, I don't remember many." Then we got on the discussion of how he didn't remember me getting student of the year (twice). He couldn't remember awards night or my brothers games. So it is terrifying to think of the trauma his brain has endured. Next, it is uplifting to know now that schools and personal are starting to take action. People are buying newer helmets with more padding. Also players must follow a concussion protocol before they are allowed back into a game. Finally, leagues have invoked "targeting" rules to stop hitting with the head.
Base on this ted talk though, this is about all we have right now. Its mostly preventative. And, we can only study the brains once the person is actually dead. But from further studying, signs and symptoms are slow at first, but the progress pretty fast. Some symptoms include cognitive impairment, impulsive behaviors, depression, short-term memory loss, emotional instability, and substance abuse. The saddest part is a lot of these people that have died have not even reached the age of 50.
One of the saddest stories I have watched about CTE is Tyler Hilinski. He was 21 years old and was prepared to be the starting quarterback for WSU the upcoming season. He committed suicide. His parents knew they needed to take action. They submitted his brain to testing. He had stage 1 CTE. I remember in an ESPN video them saying his brain looked like a 50 year old mans.
I have included two additional resources for CTE. One is a fact sheet about the disease that we currently know. The other is the ESPN video about Tyler Hilinski and his family's story.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy/symptoms-causes/syc-20370921
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyCiO7n7XEE
Reference List:
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy/symptoms-causes/syc-20370921
Nowinski, C. Can I have your Brain? The Quest for Truth on Concussions and CTE. [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_nowinski_can_i_have_your_brain_the_quest_for_truth_on_concussions_and_cte/up-next
Comments